Cake Decorating Concepts For Celebration Cakes
Nothing is more festive than a cake decorated to celebrate a season spent with friends and family. Through the years, cake decorating concepts have revolved around the different seasons and special occasions of the year. These concepts have been generated by the message of each season or occasion and conveyed through themes and symbols that people are familiar with.
New Year with a Bang
The first special cake of the year would naturally be one dedicated to celebrating the New Year. Cake decorating concepts to be conveyed on icing and frosting would include new beginnings, the affirmation of relationships and hope. These concepts are usually illustrated by a firecracker; by confetti strewn around a wineglass or a baby tooting a horn. Colors on these cakes are bright, often using touches of silver and gilt.
Easter Cakes
In many places around the world, Easter is a special occasion to celebrate a cornerstone of Christian belief. For Easter cakes decorators will often use, among others, the figure of a meek lamb, a candle or a lily. Many decorators also use Easter eggs and bunnies as more secular symbols that are popular during the season. A majority of Easter cakes are decorated with light pastel colors although bold hues have started to make an appearance in the past two decades.
Concepts for Christmas
For the season of all seasons, cakes are embellished to display the idea of gift-giving and fun. Hence, the customary symbols used on Christmas cakes include snow men, ice-skating figures, boughs of holly, boxes of gifts, Christmas trees and Santa Claus. Traditional colors that go with this concept are red, green, white and silver or gold. For some cake artists, however, there is a deeper message to Christmas; the message of forgiveness and peace coming in the person of a babe born in a humble manger.
Decorators will sometimes use a star, a manger and angels to strike a chord in the hearts of people partaking of a special meal. To remind people of the concept of peace that comes with of Christmas an example of a simple but visually effective symbol is a pure white dove, lying serenely in a bed of dark chocolate ganache, adorned only by a red ribbon on its neck proclaiming the season’s message of peace to all.
Cake Decorating Concepts for Other Occasions
Throughout the year, there are other occasions noteworthy enough to merit a cake. Birthdays, Valentine’s Day, Graduation and Halloween are but a fraction of the special days when cakes are expected to grace the dinner table. Each occasion allows an artist a chance to express a cake decorating concept with the aid of some time-honored images that lend themselves well to sugar and gum paste. Valentine’s Day has its hearts; Graduation Day has its cap and diploma; and Halloween has its jack-o-lanterns, its bats and witches on brooms.
Where to Get Help in Creating a Concept
If you are a new hobbyist and you need some help to put together a concept for decorating a cake, there are amazingly numerous resources just waiting to come to your aid. The internet, for one, has thousands of images that can inspire you to translate your ideas into butter cream or marzipan. If you want something you can tuck into your drawer to glimpse at while you plan your cake, you can always get a nice illustrated cake decorating book. This will provide you with clear pictures of details such as which colors go together well for certain themes.
Remember though that the products of others are only a means to stimulate your creative juices. The best cake is a cake that speaks to the people for whom it is made. Set free the artist in you and you will be surprised at how unique and well-appreciated your cakes can be.
