Cake Decorating Sharing

Cake Decorating, Their First Project

We decided that our first project for our new club was going to be cake decorating. We met in our church basement with a kitchen. For the meeting they were to bring a boxed cake they had made and white buttercream frosting (moms helped with frosting). Our girls range in age from 6 to 12. A mom in our group is a cake decorator so we paired the girls up, each tinted their frosting a different color than their partner, so to share colors. We used parchment paper cones (get at Wal-mart). Some moms brought the plastic bags. A quick lesson on frosting the cake and using tips to make flowers and leaves. Lots of oohs and aahs when they saw flowers appear!! And they were off!! We all had a great time and they were very proud of their cakes!! It took about an 1 1/2 to 2 hours to complete doing it this way. The cakes and frosting being made at home and brought really got us off to a good start on this project!! Hope this helps. God Bless.  (Indian River, MI)

Cake Decorating—The Most Fun!

The cake decorating badge is one of the most fun badges our Keepers at Home girls have ever completed! We visited a local bakery for a tour. A friend of ours who is a baker and caterer came to our home and taught us about 8 cake decorating lessons, which included everything from lining the cake pan with waxed paper to making stars with royal icing to using her "Viva" paper towel trick to get the buttercream icing's picture-perfect finish! After each meeting, there was lots of icing to clean up. In fact, some of it is probably still sticking around(!), but all of the girls and mothers have so many wonderful memories of the fun times learning to decorate cakes together.

At our awards banquet at the end of the year, each girl brought a cake that she baked and decorated, and we gave them all away to parents and grandparents in a fun cake walk! (Nicholson, GA)

Cake Decorating, the Girls Love It

My club has been working on the Cake Decorating skill, and it has been just great! Before the first meeting, one super mother made all the cake layers (small ones) and had them in her freezer. At the meeting, we made butter-cream frosting and frosted the cakes (leveled the layers, etc.). Then the cakes went back in the freezer! Before the next meeting, this same wonderful mother made up butter-cream frosting. At the meeting, the girls practiced with all the different tips on foil first, then decorated their cakes. They got to take them home finally! They were beautiful!

Next we will do the royal icing with the tips, first on foil for practice and then just on cookies or something, just to get the experience of the other kind of icing. And we think this will do it! (They are working on their cake idea notebooks!) The girls love it. I plan to have my daughter do another cake at home, but I don’t really think it is essential. They will earn their badges as long as they have been at all the meetings. Just thought I’d let you know what we were up to! My 2nd daughter is going to turn 6 in March, and she just CAN’T WAIT to be able to be a member! :-) (I also have a 2-year-old daughter - you can see that this girl stuff is for me??) (Atlantic Beach, FL)

A Field Trip and Nice Banquet Idea

To learn our cake decorating skills our group went on a field trip to a cake bakery. The girls learned all about baking cakes and decorating them. Next, each girl received a tiny cake to decorate in the shop with "no" mother's input. Finally, at our end-of-the-year banquet each family made a cake with buttercream frosting and decorated it with their favorite event at Keeper's Club. It was a nice reminder of all the skills they accomplished and enjoyed.  (Livonia, MI)

Looking at Books and Practicing

Our club enjoyed working on cake decorating. The first week we looked at books on how to make stars, roses, etc. and practiced using different icing tips by icing on cookie sheets. The next week we iced the cakes and decorated them with colored vanilla icing and made flowers, leaves, and the such. The cakes were beautiful and yummy! I highly recommend earning this!  (Augusta, GA)

Daughter Goes on to Use Her Skills

We did cake decorating for two meetings. The first meeting the girls learned to make frosting and and spread it on the cake nicely. The second meeting the girls were to bake a cake and frost it and bring it with them. The mom teaching the skill purchased disposable decorating bags and had several different decorating tips for the girls to try out, first on wax paper, then on their cakes. They did a great job! My 10-year-old daughter later baked a cake and decorated it for a baby shower for our youth leader's wife and everyone thought it was a store bought cake! I was soooo proud of her and was able to brag not only on her, but on our Keepers at Home group!  (Tyrone, GA)

Tips From an Expert

We have the wonderful opportunity of having a woman with at least 10 years of experience in cake decorating as our neighbor. She bought and brought home a cake and told us that most grocery stores do not use egg in their white cake recipe so that it will last 1 month in the freezer. She also said that it is best to freeze the cake before beginning so that it will not flake when iced. She told us that lard icing worked best because of its texture but that it, too, needed to be cold but not frozen to hold its shape. She demonstrated how to do borders, flowers, leaves, and how to write. After having a try at it my oldest daughter did a pretty good job on her first rose and her writing on the cake had improved. My younger daughter enjoyed coming up with unique and pretty ways to add to the border. The entire class took about two hours and we all really enjoyed it. We used the newly found skills to decorate my oldest daughter's birthday cake, and we are looking forward to making a cake for our three-year-old in July. One final note, these skills can also be adapted to candy making and clay work according to our resident expert.  (Palm Bay, FL)

Cake Decorating Demonstrations

We took 2 weeks to complete our cake decorating skills. We were blessed by having a young woman who does cake decorating as a home business come into my home and teach our club of 8 girls ranging from 8-14 years. For the first visit, we had each girl bring an already baked single layer cake and buttercream frosting. She demonstrated how to cut the cake in half and frost the cake. They also practiced several types of borders with this frosting on wax paper first and then their cake. (We copied off borders from her cake books and put them under the wax paper. It worked great!) They got to take their cakes home and eat them! The second meeting they came to watch a demonstration of how to mix royal icing and how to tint it. She showed them all her cake decorating tools as well. Then they got to work with all sorts of tips making rose buds, leaves, and other flowers. (We copied off pictures of flowers from her cake books again.) The older girls practiced making roses. What a wonderful homemaking skill for them to learn. It will bless their families and many others!  (Port Orchard, WA)

Contenders Had a Blast Learning Cake Decorating!

Our Contenders boys range in age from 4-9, and they all wanted to do the cake decorating skill! We took a field trip to a big local grocery store and for $5/child, they provided 6” cakes for each child. One of their bakers demonstrated how to fold their parchment paper and make flowers and designs. After watching, they got to practice decorating their own cakes with all different colors of buttercream frosting! They had a blast. It’s wonderful what local businesses in the community will do for the kids.  (Palm Beach Gardens, Fl)