Wedding Cake Decorating

Dressing a cake up can be a ton of fun… or it can be a super-stress nightmare! I’m all about finding beautiful ways to decorate cakes that are easy, fun, and even delicious. Here are my five favorite décor techniques (and tips for pulling them off)—but first, a quick tiered cake primer!

My biggest pet peeve when making a cake (and frankly, one of my biggest kitchen pet peeves of all time) is running out of icing midway through cake assembly or decoration. Ugh! It’s the worst! Do yourself a favor and make a little more than you think you’ll need. No one was ever sorry they had extra frosting leftover (especially if there are also cake scraps lying around, am I right?).

Part of what makes wedding cake tiers so impressive is height. But that height doesn’t necessarily have to come from five tiers stacked tall. Even a cake with only two tiers can look super impressive (and it’s so much easier to handle!) if they’re tall enough. I usually opt for 6 layers of cake, which gives each individual tier a really nice height. To do this, I usually bake three cakes in each size I want, level off the tops, then cut each into two layers.

When Should I Decorate My Cakes

The taller the cake, the more you need supports. This is true of tall tiers as well as tall stacks of tiers! I love Rose Levy Beranbaum’s tip of using drinking straws as supports in cakes. Not only do they work great, but they're also easy to cut to the right size, plus you probably already have them at home!

Drinking straws make excellent cake supports! Push a straw in as far as you can, then snip the ends off. A circle of them, pressed into a cake, gives the next tier something to rest on. Photo by Mark Weinberg

Insert one straw into the center of the cake, then press additional straws in a circle around it. You want to have as many supports as you can without them being visible once the next tier is on top. You don’t have to add supports to the top tier, but you can! Press the straws in as deep as you can, then lift it up a bit and snip the excess off with scissors, then nudge it back down.

Fondant Cake Decorating And Cake Expert Guidance

Buy the same size as the cake pans you’ll use. Not only do the circles support the cake, but they also make it much easier to stack the tiers when the time comes. You’ll be glad you did!

I’m pretty anti-fondant (gasp!?!) and I say skip it all together. For one, the stuff you can buy in cake supply stores isn’t as easy to work with as the stuff professionals use (it can be kind of dry, I find), plus it takes a skilled hand and some practice to nail it. But my main issues are: It’s expensive and it doesn’t taste good! I would much rather spend that money on high-quality chocolate to make a really delicious buttercream instead of something that most people are just going to peel off anyway.

All this said, it’s important to know your frosting. Chocolate frosting and/or whipped ganache are great for cake decorating, because they’re pretty easy to get smooth—and you can use a kitchen torch or hot water to warm the spatula you're using to frost, making the icing easier to smooth it out. But if you’re not into chocolate, any frosting will work. Just follow the brilliant advice a pastry chef friend once told me, and make sure the frosting is the consistency of mayonnaise when you go to frost. If it’s firmer than that, give it a few 10-second blasts in the microwave or hold it briefly over a water bath and stir until you get there. Soft frosting is much easier to make smooth, and it will set up once you’re done, so no worries about it being messy come slicing time.

Wedding Cake Frosting Recipe

Who says a wedding cake has to have smooth frosting? I think swirly frosting looks luscious and inviting—and it still holds up well to decorations. So rather than killing yourself trying to make a perfectly smooth cake, opt to embrace the messiness and go full-on swirly. If you look at the cake and want to stick your finger in and grab a swoop of frosting, you’re on the right track.

When you go to put your tiers together, be confident. Go boldly into the cake stackery like you’ve done it a million times. This is no time for hesitation, and it’s also easier than you’d think. Since you thought ahead and used cake circles on the base of the cake (right?!), it’s easy to move the cake around with your hands.

When you’re ready to stack, grab an offset spatula; my favorite is an 8-inch. Use the offset spatula to lift the cake off of your turntable/work surface/what-have-you. Once you’ve lifted it up a bit, you can support it with your hands. Place the bottom tier on the cake stand or platter, and use the offset spatula to keep it suspended a bit while you center it. When you’ve got it in the right spot, pull the offset spatula out; it should come out nice and clean.

Wedding Cake Design: Pop Rock! — Angel Food

Do the same with any subsequent tier: Hold it over the cake where you think it’s centered, then place the cake down. If you want, have a friend watch while you work and help you get proper placement. But even if it’s off a little, just nudge the offset spatula back under the cake circle and move it around as needed. Remember, the top of each tier is going to be covered with stuff—another tier and/or decorations—so you don’t need to worry much about what the top looks like. It’s okay if it isn’t perfectly smooth!

You’ve built your cake and you’re looking for fancy (but easy) ways to decorate it. Here are my 5 favorite techniques. Each can be adapted to suit your style and tastes, but the guidelines will stay the same!

Fresh flowers are a classic choice for decorating a cake, and the final result always looks sharp. Most of the time, if you're decorating a wedding cake, the wedding florist will provide flowers along with the others that are delivered—a selection of blooms that appear in the other arrangements and bouquets. But if not (or if the flowers are being DIY'd, too), ask whoever's getting married for their choices and colors.

How To Make A Wedding Cake + Video Tutorial

When it doubt, pick a monochromatic look. White on white always looks good at a wedding, but even clusters of flowers in similar color schemes (pinks, greens, etc.) will have a clean, elegant look. It’s generally advisable to avoid huge flowers, unless you’re going for a very full look (say, a cascade of hydrangeas sprouting off the top of the cake); small to medium flowers will allow you to make nice clusters and still give room for variety. You can use floral tape to make little bundles of flowers, or you can just stick the stems into the frosting a little bit. A few of my favorite looks:

, if you’re too overwhelmed with the building of the cake, you can bring in the aid of your favorite bakery or other products. Some of my favorites:

Fresh fruit always looks good—so appetizing and inviting. Berries are classic, but don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Halves of peaches, plums, and apricots can look great too, especially with some smaller varieties of fruit thrown in. I decorated this cake with two different kinds of cherries and mint leaves! Like I mentioned with flowers, a monochromatic look can be amazing: all reds (strawberries, raspberries, currants!) or all blacks and blues (blackberries, plums, blueberries, currants) can be a snazzy and easy way to pull it all together.

Lemon Elderflower Cake (copycat Royal Wedding Cake)

Left: See how many cherries we started with? More is more, when it comes to decorating with fruit. Right: Arranging mint leaves after all the cherries are piled on. Photo by Mark Weinberg

Whatever you choose, be plentiful (i.e. purchase more fruit than you think you’ll need). These cakes look best with plenty of fruit piled high! This technique is easy but it needs to be done somewhat last-minute, especially if the fruit is cut in any way.

Chocolate is a great way to decorate a cake: It looks fancy and tastes great to boot. The trickiest part of working with chocolate is that it needs to be tempered, so you get a nice, shiny look. You can also use thin ganache or DIY magic shell for a similar look, though both are sensitive to heat, so be careful if the cake has to stand a long time.

Ways To Decorate A Plain Wedding Cake

Don't worry too much about how smooth it is on top—the side touching the parchment will face outwards on the cake. Photo by Armando Rafael

One of my favorite (and easiest!) ways to decorate a cake with chocolate is to make big shards of thin chocolate to put around the whole outside of the cake (yet another way to cover up frosting if you’re iffy