How to beautifully decorate a nut cake. How to make a cake decoration

I just love homemade baking, especially cakes. And not only to eat, but also to bake. It's my godson's birthday very soon, and he asked me to bake him a delicious cake. And since the boy loves chocolate very much, the question of how to decorate the cake was resolved by itself.

Often in stores you can see cakes decorated with thin and neat openwork. She looks so airy and fragile. At first glance it seems that it cannot be repeated.

However, if you understand the technology for creating such delicious beauty, you understand that chocolate decorations It's really easy to make for a cake. You can use different chocolate - white, milk, black, the main thing is that it does not contain any fruits or nuts. Even the simplest chocolate pattern will look original. Show off all your imagination!

How to decorate a cake with chocolate

Editorial "So simple!" I have prepared some super useful tips for you from an experienced pastry chef, how to decorate a cake at home using chocolate drawings.

You will need

parchment paper
1–2 chocolate bars

Chocolate designs look best on the smooth surface of a culinary product. The surface should be flat, smooth and best of all monochromatic. To do this, the dessert needs to be filled with either black or white glaze.

To prepare patterns, chocolate must be broken into pieces and placed in a dry container, then placed in a water bath. It is important to ensure that no water gets into the pan with the chocolate - otherwise there is a risk that it will curdle. The container should be put on fire and stirred periodically. The result should be an elastic, homogeneous mass.

There are several ways to decorate. The first is more suitable for those who are confident in their artistic abilities. You need to make a small bag out of parchment paper (like a homemade pastry pencil).

Then you need to carefully pour the cooled liquid chocolate into it. Please note: the thinner the hole in the bag and the stream of chocolate itself, the more beautiful they will look openwork drawings. By lightly pressing on the parchment corner and squeezing out a thin stream of chocolate, start drawing what you want.

And those who are not entirely confident in their abilities can first draw a drawing on parchment paper, and then clearly draw along the lines with chocolate on it. After this, the paper with the pattern must be placed in the refrigerator so that the chocolate hardens.

Then use a thin knife to carefully remove the design from the parchment paper and carefully place it on the surface of the cake.

Another effective trick is to decorate your cake using templates. For example, you can use special lace paper napkins for this. Place one of these napkins on a cutting board, cover it with tracing paper on top and carefully repeat the design, for example with white chocolate.

Place the finished decoration in the refrigerator until cool. And then remove it from the tracing paper using a thin knife. You can place such a delightful decoration along the edge of the cake or on its surface. It all depends on the flight of your imagination.

And this method is my favorite. It is not very simple, but it looks original and beautiful. Note that you will need green leaves for this trick. And it’s better to pick them away from the road.

First you need to melt the chocolate in a water bath. Using a brush, apply melted chocolate to clean, dry leaves. In summer, rose leaves are perfect, they are dense and textured.

Place the chocolate mixture in the refrigerator for an hour, and then carefully remove the leaves.

And the simplest decoration option is a chocolate spider web. Moreover, you can try to make it from white chocolate on black glaze, and vice versa. First you need to cover the cake with chocolate glaze. Squeeze out rings of chocolate of a different color from a parchment bag. It is advisable to place them at the same distance from each other. And to create the web itself, simply draw a skewer or match from the center to the edges of the cake in several places. How do you like the result? Excellent in my opinion!

I also suggest you look at a small selection of cake decorations. These are chocolate patterns and figures for inspiration.

Sugar decorations, edible beads, wafer pictures and even chocolate lace can be found on sale.

There are silicone molds on store shelves, molds and lace rolling pins - all the attributes for independent decoration.

How to use it and not spoil the cake, but turn it into a work of culinary art, read on.

Try decorating a homemade cake based on a given theme. You will need patience to decorate. Or choose a quick way - bake an anthill and pour chocolate over it.

If you are ready to spend time and effort on a beautiful design, there are ways to decorate with your own hands:

Spices and seasonings. This is a simple method that does not require much effort. Cover the cake with cinnamon or poppy seeds; you can make a cocoa topping using special stencils.
In this way you can decorate not only pastries, but also pancake cakes.
Meringue. Small airy flowers can decorate both the entire product and its parts. Such decorations are available for sale or you can make them yourself.
Icing. This glaze is used not only to decorate gingerbread cookies, but also to cover cakes and sweets.
The icing adds a glossy sheen, making your creation sparkle in every way.
Cream. The most important component, which is used not only for layering cake layers and for decoration.
For decoration, use a dense thick ice cream or charlotte, decorate with cream using a pastry syringe.
Jelly. This filling method is used to decorate cheesecakes or cottage cheese pies. Colored jelly with pieces of bananas or other fruits creates a spring mood.
Chocolate. Classics of the genre! You can use chocolate to make frosting, cream, or paint directly on the cake.
Chocolates, cookies, wafer rolls are helpers for realizing sweet ideas. Even a beginner in the confectionery world can do this method of decoration.

By the way, unusual decoration with fresh flowers and “naked” cakes have come into fashion.. Red velvet with open sides, decorated with fruit or confectionery toppings, looks very impressive.

How to make your culinary fantasies come true? There are several secrets.

Use the table for calculating the weight and tiers of the cake for the number of guests:

How to decorate a cake with protein custard at home

Not every cream is suitable for decorating a cake. Protein, whipped cream, butter custard, and cottage cheese hold their shape well.

But with sour cream or regular custard for Napoleon You won’t be able to decorate it voluminously; it’s better suited for layering. Protein custard has a delicate taste and light texture.

To prepare this cream you need a few ingredients:

Proteins – 3 pieces.
Sugar – 6 tablespoons.
Water – 50 milliliters.

Recipe This type of cream requires care and precision. The hardest part is making the sugar meringue.

You can decorate with cream made from raw proteins, but the custard method is safer and suitable for baby food.
First you need to brew the syrup.

Heat the mixture of water and sugar over low heat. The mixture will be ready in 10–15 minutes. The syrup should thicken and stretch, but not caramelize.

Important! Do not overcook the syrup, otherwise the cream will be spoiled.

While the syrup is cooking, you need to beat the whites. It is better to cool them in the refrigerator to make whipping easier.

The crucial moment is to pour hot syrup into the whites in a thin stream to brew the cream. With this method of preparation, all microbes are destroyed. Beat the whites until the mixture cools completely.

The cream is ready. It has an elastic shape and is suitable for decorating any cake. If you have a pastry bag at your disposal, use nozzles to create flowers of different shapes.

You can also decorate the sides or sides with cream, or layer sponge cakes.

An easier option is to cover the entire cake., thereby hiding the unevenness, sprinkle with grated chocolate and walnuts. Add food coloring to create a vibrant cream color.

How to decorate a cake with various fruits and juicy berries

Sometimes there is not enough time to bring confectionery fantasies to life, and guests are already on the doorstep, then fruit decor is what you need.

If the cream fails with an inexperienced housewife, then nothing can spoil the fruit. Use grapes, orange slices, garnish with blackberries or strawberries, whatever berries are available for sale.

To prevent the sponge cakes from becoming saturated with berry juice and becoming soft, decorate the cake with a layer of cream or glaze.

For decoration, use not only fresh fruits, but also canned ones. To do this, drain off the excess juice.

Choose products that match your color scheme and taste. Before making bright arrangements, wash and dry the fruits.

Decorating with strawberries with a tail or orange rings in the peel looks impressive. Try making a citrus flower by folding orange circles like petals.

Even use frozen berries to create fruit heaven. Raspberries and blueberries do not lose their shape when defrosted; you can decorate them with frozen cherries and red currants.

To make the berries delightful with their appearance, use the method of gradual defrosting. Temperature changes may cause the berries to fall apart.

Decorating the cake with sweets: chocolate, candies, ememdems

Chocolate decor is an ideal option for decorating at home. Even a child can use this method.

Invite your little one to help you. The baby will fantasize and create sweet pictures with the help of mmdems, sweets and chocolate.

This method will save time. For registration you can use:

Raffaello sweets and others.
Dragee or raisins in colored breading.
Peanuts in glaze.
Marshmallow, marmalade.
Marshmallow.
Wafer rolls.
Oreo cookies, Snickers or brand name sweets.

Decorate the cake as your imagination dictates. Combine colors, lay out inscriptions from dragees. To decorate, the candies must stick, so grease the cakes with cream. This way the candies will stick better.

Make a fence of wafer rolls for the cake and decorate with openwork ribbon. You can use Kit-Kat or Twix sticks. You need to attach it to cream walls.

If you are ready to spend more time, melt the chocolate and draw butterflies, hearts or roses on parchment using a pastry bag. After hardening, quickly transfer the design to the cake.

Beautiful decorations for children's cakes made from mastic

Such figures have become popular. Buy or make them yourself. For this we need mastic. There are several recipes. Mastic is prepared from gelatin, milk powder and even condensed milk.

Tasty and simple - marshmallow recipe:

Marshmallow – 200 grams.
Butter – 5 grams.
Water – 5 milliliters.
Powdered sugar – 100 grams.
Starch – 10 grams.

The recipe is quick. Take chewing marshmallows of the desired color, sprinkle with water, add a piece of butter, and microwave for 10 seconds.

The marshmallows will double in size. Add powdered sugar and coloring portions to the hot mass and knead. If necessary, sprinkle the table with starch.

Attention! Sift the powdered sugar thoroughly to make the mastic smooth. Don't add too much powder, otherwise the dough will crumble.

You can cover the entire cake with fondant. A sour cream cake will not hold its shape; it is better to use honey or bird's milk for mastic.

Use butter cream as a base for the mastic. From the marshmallow mass you can make bears, cars or cartoon characters - whatever you can think of.

Important! Use natural ingredients, syrup or juice as coloring agents. You should not use alcoholic drinks for impregnation, but add vanillin or orange zest for flavor.

Original decorations for cakes and cupcakes for birthdays and holidays

For children's parties, prepare a cake in the shape of a number, decorate with multi-colored cream or sprinkle with marzipan decoration.

Make sugar figures from your favorite cartoons and delight your baby with an edible hero. Decorate a cake for a man with real bottles of whiskey or rum. Such miniature versions are sold in souvenir departments.

Build snowmen! Decorate New Year's cupcakes with them. And for Easter, mastic chickens sitting in green cream will be popular.

For your mother's anniversary, prepare a two-tier cake decorated with a festive inscription on top. Such a large dessert will be relevant for wedding events.

The first birthday is a real event. Small bottles, pacifiers, booties cause tenderness. You can make tags and write the baby’s height and weight in chocolate.

For a little girl's birthday party, make a dress-shaped cake using cupcakes decorated with pink frosting. Decorate a cake with cars for boys and with flowers for girls.

It is worth proceeding from the interests and age of the birthday person. A cake prepared with love and care will be the best holiday gift.

Useful video

A holiday is a time to please your loved ones with unexpected gifts, pleasant words, invite guests to visit and make little dreams come true. And to make sure the day is memorable, you can find out in advance how to beautifully and originally decorate a birthday cake and see step-by-step photos.

Decorate a homemade dessert with fruit - what could be simpler and more affordable. At the same time, baked goods can look very original and appetizing, which will only delight the invited guests.

You just need to know a few simple secrets and not be afraid to put them into practice:

Coat the top of the cake with sour cream or custard. We arrange a berry-fruit mix of kiwi, banana, cherry and strawberry in a spiral. We dilute the jelly in a small amount of water (choose the flavor at your discretion) and apply it to the berries with a pastry brush. Place the dessert in the refrigerator for half an hour, then repeat the procedure.

Prepare syrup from one glass of sugar and a glass of water. Cut the apples into thin rings and boil them in the sweet mixture until plastic. We roll the first petal into a tube, and twist the rest on top until we get a flower. Turn the edges of the apples slightly outward.

A simple and effective option for decorating a birthday cake (photo can be seen below) is to use fresh (or frozen) raspberries and “plant” them on mint leaves. Unforgettable taste and pleasant impressions are guaranteed.

Many people cannot imagine their life without chocolate, which is why jewelry made from this “material” is so popular. Some ideas can be brought to life even at home.

The simplest and fastest option that beginner confectioners will like.

To create it you need:

Place the chocolate bar (most often milk is used) in a warm place for 10-15 minutes. Sometimes it takes a little more time.
Working with gloves, cut the shavings with a knife, which will immediately begin to curl. We hide it in the refrigerator until it hardens completely.
After the required time has passed, decorate the cake in any order.

To make a more elegant dessert decoration, you will need a little more time.

But all the efforts will be justified by a wonderful result:

Melt the dark chocolate bar over low heat (with a little milk) or in the microwave. It is better not to use a water bath, as condensation will begin to form.
We draw any pattern on parchment paper - snowflakes, stars, hearts, lace, flowers.
Pour the melted chocolate into a pastry syringe and carefully trace the resulting pattern. Another option is to use a plastic bag and make a small hole in it.
You need to work quite quickly, since the chocolate “paint” hardens in a few minutes.
Place the parchment in the refrigerator for about half an hour. After the specified time, carefully separate the edible layer and decorate the dessert with it.

Stencils for decorating a cake at home

If a person knows how to draw at least a little and beautifully cut out contours, then you can use the following option for decorating homemade baked goods:

We take a sheet of paper whose diameter is slightly larger than itself. We draw on it any ornament that comes to mind.
We cut out the contours as evenly as possible, but if some error occurs, it’s okay.
Hold the sheet over the cake (it’s better to ask for help if you don’t feel comfortable doing everything yourself) and sprinkle it with powdered sugar or sifted cocoa.

Some more interesting ideas

If you don’t want to spend a lot of time decorating or if nothing good comes out, this is not a reason to be upset. After all, there is always the opportunity to use simpler options that can look no less impressive.

First of all, these include:

Drizzle the sides with chocolate or multi-colored glaze. With its help you can also make a beautiful inscription for the hero of the occasion.

We use ready-made chocolate figures, which should be ordered in advance online or purchased at a confectionery store.

Whole (or chopped) walnut kernels are great for decorating desserts. With their help, you can “draw” a tree or flowers, and also draw a border on the sides. Almonds are well suited for the same purposes.

A classic combination is chocolate with whipped cream. Various fruits or berries are often placed on top. And so that they do not lose their appearance, they should be dipped in transparent jelly.

It’s very easy to decorate the sides of a birthday cake at home with cream stripes (use a pastry syringe for this) or “broken” chocolate.

You can also decorate the sides with a picket fence made of wafer rolls or long cookies. But in this case, you should make sure that the dessert does not turn out too sugary.

Another option is to miss

To please and truly surprise your family and friends, as well as guests, you don’t have to be a sorceress; you just need to master some amazing skills in creating unusual and incredibly beautiful desserts.

In this article, the News Portal “site” has collected especially for you the most amazing ways to create truly beautiful and unusual cakes.

Agree, such a dessert as a cake is an obligatory guest at events such as Birthdays, Wedding Days, New Years, Defenders of the Fatherland Day and March 8, and many other equally important events.

Many of us prefer to trust store-bought or custom-made cakes, because then the cake will definitely be beautiful, although not always truly tasty, unlike a home-made dessert.

The news portal "site" decided to invite you to try to make a really beautiful cake using your favorite homemade recipe.

So, you are preparing your signature homemade cake, and we will help you decorate the cake.

"Zebra" cake

Such a beautiful cake can easily become the main highlight of a children's party or bachelorette party, and at the same time it will not require any special skills or effort from you. You just need to add a little cocoa to some of the dough for color and follow the photo tutorial below.

Leopard Cake

Surprise your guests with a leopard print cake. To get such an original pattern in the cut cake, you need to do everything exactly the same as in the case of the “Zebra” cake, just add another color to the dough. The new color is soft carrot. This can be achieved using food coloring or by mixing white dough with one to which cocoa has been added.

Cake “Colorful Balls”

This way to decorate a cake will not leave anyone indifferent. And everything is very simple to do.

Start by baking colorful little balls (use food coloring). Place the finished multi-colored balls inside the dough for the future cake and bake (see photo).

This cake will be a great decoration for your holiday table.

Chessboard Cake

This method of decorating a cake is incredibly surprising, because the first thought that comes to mind is “How is this even possible?”

But in fact, everything is outrageously simple. To create a chessboard inside the cake, you will need cake layers of two colors: black (cocoa) and white.

Then, using round molds of different diameters, cut out circles from the cakes and place them inside each other (see photo).

Such an amazing cake will be a great surprise for a checkers or chess lover.

Cake "Heart"

This cake will be an unforgettable surprise for Valentine's Day, Wedding Day, or just a romantic evening with your loved one. Making a heart is not difficult. In the finished cake, cut out the middle in the shape of a cone. Then pour red crumbs inside it, made from a pre-prepared red crust. In the middle of the red crumbs, make a small indentation, which you fill with white cake cutouts. Cover the creation with another whole cake layer.

We bring to your attention a few more techniques for creating hearts inside a cake, pie or cupcakes.

Cake with sweets inside

Very unusual and impressive, don't you agree? This cake will surprise and delight anyone. A great option for a birthday cake or a surprise cake.

It’s not at all difficult to make such a miracle!

In the finished cake, you need to cut a hole in the center. Pour multi-colored candies into the prepared cavity. Now you can cover the candies with the whole cake layer, coat it with cream and decorate the cake.

Rainbow Cake

Do you like bright and unusual multi-colored patterns? Then you will like this option. Use the most incredible food colors and let your cake shine like a bright rainbow.

Cake "Leaf"

Using this technique, you can create any designs inside the cake. The main thing is to make a template and use it to cut out the necessary shapes from the prepared cakes.

Cake with name

Cake with stars

Halloween Cake

Flag Cake

Using this technique, you can create cakes in the shape of any flags. Such cakes will be very appropriate at international banquets, and will also be a great gift for foreign guests.

Cake "Bear"

If you want to impress your guests, follow the photo instructions and a funny edible bear will smile sweetly from your homemade cake.

Cake "Owl"

Cake “Watermelon+Melon”

If you strive to always be slim and beautiful, but your love for everything sweet and starchy ruins your plans, then use this recipe.

The cake is very tasty, and most importantly natural and low-calorie.

The cake layers are cut out circles of watermelon and melon, and the cream is vegetable cream.

A light, tasty and surprisingly interesting cake that will definitely earn the title of your favorite dessert.

Painting a cake with chocolate icing at home

Decorating a homemade cake with chocolate chips in 5 minutes

An easy way to decorate a cake at home

Anyone can prepare a delicious cake for the holiday. Finding an interesting recipe nowadays is also not a problem. All that remains is to do everything according to the instructions and the luxurious confectionery product is ready to be served on the festive table. Although... a birthday cake without decoration is like a beautiful lady at a party in a dressing gown. Therefore, no matter how wonderful a homemade cake is, it must be properly decorated.

Decorating a cake at home requires certain skills. Therefore, before preparing and decorating a culinary masterpiece for a big celebration, it makes sense to practice a little on simple confectionery products. After all, no one bothers you to decorate homemade cookies prepared on a regular day off.
It is equally important to think through the composition in advance, otherwise unforeseen difficulties may arise during the design process.
It's a good idea to stock up on some pastry decorating tools as well. Of course, the inquisitive collective mind of the almighty Internet will find a way to do without them, using an ordinary spoon or fork; you will also find master classes on this dyeing option below. But if you plan to decorate cakes at a certain frequency, then it’s better to simplify your task. Well, now it’s time to talk directly about the means and methods of decorating homemade cakes.

Decorating a homemade cake with cream

Cream is one of the most famous and popular ways to decorate a cake. It’s not for nothing that most store-bought confectionery products are decorated with numerous rosettes, cream borders and other buttery trinkets.

Buttercream recipe

Making real pastry cream based on butter is a rather tricky process. If you wish, of course you can tinker, but such physical and financial costs are completely inappropriate for decorating a homemade cake. It is fashionable to prepare high-quality and simple buttercream from just two ingredients:

butter– 100 g;
condensed milk– 5 tablespoons.

A detailed step-by-step recipe for preparing a simple buttercream for decorating a homemade cake with photos. To prepare the cream, the butter must be taken out of the refrigerator in advance. When it becomes soft, beat it thoroughly with a mixer. When the butter becomes fluffy, you need to pour condensed milk into it and continue whisking until it becomes homogeneous and airy. The simplest cream for decorating a home masterpiece is ready. By the way, to prepare it you can use not only regular condensed milk, but also its boiled version. In this case, the cream will acquire a pleasant beige hue and taste like classic creme brulee.

Natural homemade food colors

Of course, decorating a cake exclusively with white cream is boring. And to color the creamy treat, you can use any food coloring. They can be purchased in the store in the form of powders, or you can prepare them yourself, for example:

a little saffron diluted in a small amount of water will make the mastic yellow;
juices of beets or cherries - red;
carrot juice - orange;
spinach broth - green;
cocoa - brown.

The cream is quite easy to work with. It is better, of course, to use a special syringe with different attachments for decoration. With this tool you can draw real masterpieces on confectionery products. However, you can get by with a regular packaging bag or a bag rolled out of paper with a neatly cut corner. When you press the bag, the cream is evenly squeezed onto the surface of the cake. With practice, even with the help of such a primitive tool, you can decorate any cake with borders, inscriptions, and roses with petals.
After decorating the surface of the cake is completed, the dessert must be put in the refrigerator so that the cream hardens a little. And it’s also better to store leftover cake in the refrigerator. In this case, the cream will be edible for at least three days.

Homemade frosting recipes

Another wonderful and most importantly simple way to decorate a homemade cake is icing. You can make the glaze with just three ingredients on hand:

powdered sugar– 3 tablespoons;
milk- 1 tablespoon;
butter– 50 g.

Melt the butter over low heat in a crust and let it cool slightly. Then add the sugar ingredient to the butter and stir well. Then add milk and mix everything again. The finished mixture is white milk icing for decorating a homemade cake. It can be spread on the surface of the biscuit and allowed to harden.

You can also make chocolate glaze. Only the proportions of the products should be slightly different:

powdered sugar– 3 tablespoons;
milk- 2 tablespoons;
butter– 30 g;
cocoa- 1 tablespoon.

Mix cocoa powder with powdered sugar. Pour milk into the resulting mixture, mix well again and put on fire. When the mixture boils, remove the crust from the heat and stir in the butter. The chocolate glaze is ready to be applied to the cake.

You can also make a real confectionery glaze - ganache. This is a denser version of this “finishing” material. And to prepare it you need to take:

chocolate– tiles (180-200 g);
butter– 50-70 g.

To get ganache, just melt the chocolate and mix it with melted butter.

Decorating a cake with fondant at home

This is not to say that this is a very simple way to decorate cakes. However, with a certain skill and enough practice, you can use mastic to make real works of art from your confectionery products.

Mastic is a sweet, plastic mass, its characteristics somewhat reminiscent of plasticine. You can cut out various figures from it, or you can simply “cover” the entire cake with it, decorating it on top in some original way. Volumetric compositions from mastic can also be made as decoration for a homemade cake, but when drying they can begin to crumble, so it is better to use other “materials” for this.

Pastry mastic recipe

Many recipes for making mastic have been invented. However, the easiest way to make milk mastic at home is. For this you will need:

condensed milk– 200 g;
powdered milk– 150 g;
powdered sugar– 150 g;
lemon juice- for revision.

Mix powdered sugar and milk powder thoroughly. Then gradually pour condensed milk into the mixture, kneading the dough. The result should be a homogeneous, elastic mass. It should be noted right away that the amount of dry products indicated is approximate. If the resulting mass sticks to your hands, then you should add a little more powder to it. It also happens the other way around: the dough does not want to stick and crumbles in your hands, then you will need to pour 1-2 teaspoons of lemon juice into it. And a few more words about the ingredients. For mastic, you should use the finest powdered sugar. Moreover, this product must be sifted through a sieve. This guarantees a high-quality end result.

The resulting mastic is almost white in color. To sculpt colored figures from it to decorate a homemade cake, you need to add food coloring to the mixture. They have already been mentioned in the description of making mastic. Working with mastic is quite simple. A ball of “dough” is rolled out on a surface covered with starch or powdered sugar, after which the canvas can be placed on the cake to “cover it” or decorative elements can be cut out of it. Some confectioners advise rolling out the mastic between two regular packaging bags. In principle, this is also possible. You can connect several mastic elements by slightly moistening the gluing areas with plain water.

It is worth warning that mastic should not be used to cover sponge cakes soaked in syrup or sour cream. This impregnation will easily dissolve all decorations. There are no other serious restrictions on the use of this material. The remaining mastic after decorating the cake should not be thrown away. It stores well in the refrigerator, provided that the material is tightly wrapped in two or three ordinary plastic bags.

Marzipan for decorating the cake

Marzipan can be an excellent option for decorating a homemade cake. This material can be used to cover the surface and make a wide variety of decorative elements from it.
What is marzipan? This name hides a delicate-tasting and elastic nut mass, perfect for decorating a homemade cake. You can probably buy it ready-made in confectionery stores. However, you can make marzipan yourself. To do this you only need to purchase:

almond- cup;
granulated sugar- cup;
water- a quarter glass.

Peel the nuts and fry on a dry baking sheet in the oven until golden brown. Grind the finished kernels in a blender or grate on a fine grater. Boil a thick syrup from sugar and water and pour ground nuts into it. Stir the mixture well and cook for 3 minutes. Pour the mixture into a bowl generously greased with butter and let cool. Remove the finished marzipan from the bowl, pass through a meat grinder and you can start decorating the cake.
Working with marzipan is as easy as working with mastic. A “lump” of material is rolled out, after which it is used to cover the top of the cakes or cut out figures and other elements from it. If the marzipan spreads when rolled out, add powdered sugar to it and knead thoroughly. If the product, on the contrary, is too dense, then it should be sprinkled with warm water. After this procedure, it will roll out much easier.
What you should not forget is that marzipan needs some time to harden properly. So confectionery creativity should be done in advance - no less than 8 hours before taking the culinary masterpiece to the guests.

Icing

Icing or ice pattern is another great way to decorate a homemade cake. This technique is usually used in the confectionery industry when decorating wedding cakes. However, no one bothers you to decorate a cake with icing, for example: for New Year's Eve.
Icing is rightfully considered a universal method of decoration, since such patterns do not spread and adhere well to any confectionery surface. This decoration looks like an ice pattern on glass. To make this decoration you will need to take:

powdered sugar– 500 g (usually it takes a little more);
egg whites- 3 pcs.;
lemon juice– 3 teaspoons;
glycerol– 1 teaspoon.

First, all the ingredients need to be cooled. Then carefully crack the eggs, separate the whites from the yolks and place in a clean, fat-free bowl. The last procedure can be carried out by simply wiping the inside of the dish with a slice of lemon.
Beat the egg whites with a mixer at the lowest speed. There is no need to beat for a long time - two minutes is enough. Now you can add the remaining ingredients to the whites and continue beating the mixture until it turns white. Cover the bowl with the prepared “ice” mass with film and put it in the refrigerator for an hour. During this time, all the formed bubbles should burst. Ready! However, it will not be possible to work with this material without special equipment. You will have to purchase a pastry syringe with special attachments.
The icing needs to be transferred into a syringe. In this case, you need to put the narrowest nozzle on the tool. This material can be used to draw lace, make various inscriptions, decorate borders, etc. The only limitation is that the surface of the confectionery product should not be sticky or prone to dripping. But the icing fits perfectly on mastic or hard glaze.

Waffle decoration for homemade cake

Wafers are a good material for decorating a homemade cake. There is no limit to the scope for imagination here. With the right skill, you can make a portrait or draw a magnificent still life on a wafer plate. Of course, this should be done exclusively with food coloring. You can also make any three-dimensional elements for decoration from a waffle plate.
One thing is bad. Regular waffle cakes are not very suitable for such purposes. They get wet or break. So you will have to purchase special wafer paper. It is produced in two types. More dense - it is good just for applying images (often sold with an image already applied) and very thin - it can be cut into parts. However, such confectionery delights cannot be purchased in every locality. Therefore, it’s easier to make do with regular waffle cake.
It’s worth starting with the fact that cutting such a workpiece to give the desired shape should only be done with a very sharp knife. It is also advisable to soak it in warm water. Otherwise, the waffles will simply crumble.
After applying the design, the cake layer should be carefully placed on the surface of the cake. Just to begin with, this very surface needs to be made perfectly smooth. Materials such as mastic or thick glaze are perfect for leveling. To prevent the waffle layer from sliding off, the back side of the cake must be greased with something sticky. Thick sugar syrup, jam or honey are perfect for this purpose.
In order to apply the “glue” the cake must be placed on a smooth surface. The sticky layer must be applied evenly to the surface using a special brush. If you don’t have such a tool at home, you can even out the adhesive mass with a spoon.
The prepared waffle cake should be placed on the cake, covered with a napkin and carefully leveled, squeezing out the air inside. The edges of this design can be decorated with cream or whipped cream.
Do the same with figures cut out of waffles. They are lubricated on one side with an adhesive substance and placed in the desired place. Three-dimensional figures can also be assembled from waffle parts. For example, you can make the body and antennae of a butterfly from cream, and stick wings made from waffles nearby.

Homemade chocolate for cake decoration

Chocolate is the most affordable material for decorating a homemade cake. You can buy it in any store, and working with sweet tiles does not require any complex tools.
The simplest way to decorate a cake with chocolate is to sprinkle it with shavings. To do this, you can simply grate the chocolate and sprinkle it over the entire surface of the cream-smeared cake. With a little more effort, you can make a pattern or inscription out of chocolate chips. To do this, you first need to cut out a stencil of the desired design from paper, apply it to the surface of the confectionery masterpiece, and then sprinkle it evenly with chocolate chips. When the stencil is removed, only the desired image will remain on the cream surface. Of course, the choice of chocolate in this case depends on the background color. A regular chocolate pattern looks good on a light cream, while a pattern of white chocolate chips will look contrasting on a brown cream.
The topping can be made more interesting if the chocolate is not grated, but cut into thin chips using a regular vegetable cutter. The resulting curls look very impressive, being a wonderful decoration in themselves.

Chocolate is also good because it can be melted. Many culinary publications write that chocolate bars should be turned into a liquid mass in a steam bath. In fact, this is not entirely correct. It is better to melt the chocolate over low heat in a saucepan, stirring it constantly. In extreme cases, you can use a microwave. But in a pore bath, the chocolate will absorb some of the condensation and it will no longer be possible to make a normal pattern from it. But it's time to get back to decorating.
The resulting chocolate mass can be put into a culinary syringe and used to draw a wide variety of patterns. To make the pattern openwork, you need to choose the thinnest attachment for the tool. If you don’t have a syringe at hand, it doesn’t matter. You can put the chocolate mass into a regular packaging bag, make a small hole in it with a darning game and start decorating the cake.
However, you should not paint directly on the surface of the confectionery product. It is better to first apply the desired design on parchment paper or foil, and then trace the contours of the design with liquid chocolate mass. The sheet with the applied pattern must be carefully transferred to the refrigerator to harden. After some time, the base must be carefully separated from the chocolate patterns, and the resulting pieces must be placed on the prepared surface of the cake.
To create such decorations, you can use not only paper or foil. An excellent decoration for a cake can be made by pouring melted chocolate over a clean tree leaf. Then the blanks must also be sent to the refrigerator, and then the natural leaf must be separated from the chocolate leaf. By the way, it is better to apply chocolate to the back side of the leaf, then the real “veins” will be visible on the decorative leaf.
Using special stencil molds from chocolate, you can cut out a wide variety of figures. To do this, pour the melted chocolate mass onto a cold baking sheet greased with butter and level it with a knife. When the mass has almost hardened, you can start cutting out figures with molds.
Or you can do without molds by simply cutting the chocolate layer into various geometric shapes: squares, triangles, diamonds and other “wedges”.

Whipped cream

This is also a good way to decorate a homemade cake. In principle, you can buy a can of ready-made whipped cream, but this is too banal. It’s better to make your own whipped cream, especially since it’s not at all difficult. To do this you need to take:

cream (fat content not less than 30%)– 0.5 l.

The trick to whipping cream is its temperature. For everything to work out, the dairy product must be cooled for 4-5 hours in the refrigerator. The container in which the cream will be whipped and the whisk with which this process will be carried out should also be cold. Speaking of capacity. It is better to take a larger bowl for whipping, since the cream will significantly increase in volume as you work on it.
Now about the process itself. The product must be beaten at the lowest speed for the first minute, and then it can be increased. The whole action should take 7-8 minutes. There is no need to whip longer, as this may cause the cream to lose all its airiness.
The classic version of whipped cream can be modified. For example, before whipping, you can dissolve sugar or powdered sugar in a dairy product (the latter is preferable). Vanillin or vanilla sugar will give whipped cream a pleasant aroma. You can add any food coloring to the cream. Then the finished cream will become colored.
Some sources suggest adding gelatin to it. However, you shouldn't do this. Whipped cream holds its shape perfectly, but it needs to be placed on a slightly sticky surface. Otherwise, the decoration may “slip”.
And working with whipped cream is just as easy as working with cream. Especially if you have a pastry syringe in the kitchen. But unlike desserts with cream, it is advisable to eat a cake with whipped cream right away. They still don't hold their shape that well.

Decorating Homemade Meringue Cakes

Meringue towers look very impressive on any cake. Of course, you can’t decorate a cake with crispy hemispheres alone. This decoration should be placed on a surface greased with cream, glaze or at least jam. You can prepare meringue at home if you have:

egg whites- 5 pieces.;
sugar– 250 g.

Carefully break the eggs and separate the whites from the yolks. Pour the whites into a large container and beat with a mixer until stiff foam. After this, you need to start pouring sugar into the mixture. This should be done gradually - 1-2 tablespoons at a time, while continuing to beat the mixture. The mixer speed should not be too high, but it should not be too low either. In total, the entire process takes 12-15 minutes.
Place the prepared protein mass on a baking sheet covered with greased baking paper. You can spread it using a regular tablespoon or the same pastry syringe. Baking time at 100°C is approximately 1.5-2 hours, depending on the size of the meringue.

Fruits for decoration

What could be easier than decorating a homemade cake with fresh fruit or delicious pieces of fruit? Perhaps this is a rhetorical question. This design option could indeed be considered the simplest, if not for one “but”. Fruits are not very keen to fit onto the cake layers baked for them. So you can’t do without cream, glaze or jelly here either.
The choice of “substrate” largely depends on the fruit. For strawberries, simple buttercream is the best option. Not so exotic bananas go well with chocolate icing. But the safe bet, of course, is jelly. How to make it? This will be discussed below. In the meantime, a few more words about fruits.
Any variety of natural delicacies is suitable for decorating the cake. You can take fresh fruit, canned or frozen. In principle, even jam will do. After all, these are also fruits, only in processed form.
Fresh strawberries can be beautifully cut into halves and covered with them on the surface of the confectionery product. Small berries - raspberries and blackberries - can be placed whole, dividing the cake into several contrasting triangular sectors. Entire compositions can be made from exotic fruits. In short, imagination is practically unlimited here.

How to decorate a jelly cake

Now it's time to talk about how to decorate a homemade cake using jelly. Theoretically, you can buy a concentrate of this product in a store, dilute it according to the instructions and decorate the cake with it. This is even a very good option, allowing you to get a wonderful decorative element without much labor. Although in fact, jelly is not so difficult to make yourself. To do this you need to have on hand:

fruit juice– 0.6 l;
powdered sugar– 200-250 g;
instant gelatin– 1 sachet.

Let the gelatin swell in one glass of juice, then melt in a water bath. After this, pour the remaining juice into the mixture, add powder, stir everything well and put it in the refrigerator. There is no need to let the jelly harden completely. It just needs to set a little.
Place the finished cake in a springform pan so that the sides rise above the cake layers by about 30 mm. Remove the prepared jelly mass from the refrigerator and place in the mold. You can immediately put fresh fruit on the surface of the jelly and put the cake in the refrigerator for 12 hours.
What to do with the rest of the jelly? It can be put into molds and put in the refrigerator. When they have cooled a little, place them on a jelly surface that has not yet hardened.
By the way, it is not necessary to make jelly from juice alone. You can take several varieties of multi-colored fruit drinks, divide the surface of the cake into sectors and make a colorful fill. Or you can make the surface monochromatic, and put colored figures on it.

Ready-made confectionery products (sweets and marmalade)

Without much effort, you can decorate a homemade cake with ready-made sweets or marmalade. Of course, caramel or candies are not suitable for decoration. But chocolates, chocolate bars, wafer rolls and even M&M are excellent materials for decorating homemade confectionery.
The candies should be placed on a surface covered with cream or glaze. Moreover, cream is preferable because it is less sweet. Ready-made confectionery products can be used to decorate not only the surface of the cake, but also its end part. For this, for example, wafer rolls placed vertically are perfect.
You can decorate a cake in an interesting way using ready-made multi-colored marmalade. The simplest option is to lay out the surface in the form of a pattern or inscription. You can do something more cunning. Marmalade melts perfectly in the microwave in just seconds. You can work with the prepared mass in the same way as with jelly. Only the marmalade hardens faster - only 3-4 hours.
You can paint entire pictures with liquid marmalade. True, in this case it is better to cover the surface of the cake with mastic. Then, using a confectionery syringe with the thinnest nozzle and melted chocolate, you need to apply the contours of the design to the surface of the future masterpiece. When the chocolate has cooled, you can fill the corresponding places of the design with liquid marmalade of the desired color.

Sprinkles for decorating homemade cake

Well, if all the above methods seem complicated, then you can do it quite simply - sprinkle the surface of the cake with some bulk material, for example: powdered sugar, cocoa or purchased multi-colored sprinkles.
It is worth remembering that the sprinkle will not stick to a dry surface. Therefore, before you start decorating a homemade cake, its top and sides should be coated with something sticky: cream, icing or jam. The coating should be applied immediately after coating, before the “sticky” base hardens.
As a rule, no housewife has any difficulty sprinkling the top surface of the cake. But decorating the ends of a confectionery product with such material is quite problematic. But this is only if you don’t know one secret. To apply the sprinkles to the sides, you need to place the cake on a piece of fabric, sprinkle the desired material around it directly on the fabric, and then gently press the material to the side of the cake. Most of the sprinkles will stick to the sides.

A cake simply sprinkled with something will turn out delicious, but the decoration will look too boring. A stencil will help correct the situation. You can cut out any pattern or inscription from plain paper, apply it to the surface of the confectionery product and start sprinkling. When the stencil is removed, the desired design will appear on the cake.
Sprinkling can be done with more than just one material. Thanks to stencils, you can also make drawings from different contrasting materials, for example: all from the same cocoa and powdered sugar. What else can you sprinkle on the cake? Yes, basically, anything. As a “finishing material” you can use crushed nuts, cookie or waffle crumbs, instant coffee, grated chocolate, etc., etc., etc.... The main thing is that the topping is harmoniously combined with the taste of the cake.
That's all, actually. Creative success and bon appetit!