Simple but Effective Cake Decorations and Accessories

Cakes are one of the best rewards in life. Not only do they make good desserts, they are also a lot of fun to make and to design. You can turn a simple square slab or cake into something really beautiful or interesting by using cake decorations and accessories. While you do not really have to do this every single time you bake a cake, you could make special cakes when there are occasions or events that are worth celebrating. The options are virtually endless! You can use icing, sugar flowers, ribbons, pieces of fruit, chocolate, and even leaves! With some creativity and a couple of basic ideas to nudge you towards the right direction, you could make your cake really beautiful.

You can get some ideas from baking and home magazines. They usually include a recipe for a cake as well as tips on how to use cake decorations and accessories to go with the cake recipe. You could also watch cookery shows on TV and wait for something about cakes and baking to come up and then list down the ideas and tips the host gives.

Alternatively, you could actually do things yourself. While this is hard since you do not really have an actual picture to refer to, you could always learn and have some fun while you're at it. One thing you could try is to create chocolate curls and place them on top of a cake. You could use white chocolate and dark chocolate and use a peeler to shave off strips from bars of chocolate. You can make the curls as bog or tiny as you want them. Then, to add more color to your design, you could use a couple of berries to punch up the color of your cake.

You could also add some chocolate leaves on your cake. This can be easily made with some clean, bone-dry leaves and melted chocolate. Cover the underside of the leaf with chocolate and wait for it to set. Peel off the leaf and place it on top of the cake. You can also add some nuts or berries at the base of the leaves to give the design an earthy feel to it.

Another thing you could do, if you're really pressed for time, is to use small candy covered chocolate. Take a couple of bags and use these to line the edges of the cake as well as its base. Then, with icing, you can write a message on the cake. On the other hand, you can just place some candles on the cake or some sparklers if it's meant to be a birthday cake.

Cake decorations and accessories can be as exotic as flakes of gold atop a rich dark chocolate cake or could be as simple as a heartfelt message written in homemade icing. Whatever the design you choose, remember that you need to know your skills and your limitations. Trying to shoot for a complicated design when you're still an amateur at cake designing may leave you frustrated so you have to stick with simple ones.