Does your pint-sized baker want nothing more than to get in the kitchen and bake up gorgeous, tasty treats like they see on their favorite television shows? No worries, mamas! You don’t need to have gone to pastry school to help them whip up some easy cake designs! While they may look fancy, they’re not as complicated as you would think.
These six styles are a great starting point for learning important decorating practices – not to mention a little patience, too. Once they’ve mastered these easy cake designs and techniques, the sky is the limit! It’s simple to enhance them and move on to more challenging designs. So grab those aprons and ingredients and get started. Happy baking!
Where to Start with Easy Cake Designs
First things first, you’ll need a cake! Use your favorite recipe or even a box cake mix. Psst, want to hear a secret? Many professional bakers start their recipes with a box mix as well! It’s consistent, reliable, and time-saving and it enables them to focus on the important part – the decorating!
We recommend two to three equally sized layers. This will give you a nice canvas as a backdrop for your easy cake designs. Plus, it provides for optimal icing distribution with each bite! Not to mention, the added height increases the “wow factor” of the final product.
And speaking of icing, you’ll need that, too. Pick up your favorite store-bought variety or try one of these recipes from the professionals – Magnolia Bakery’s Buttercream Vanilla Icing and Best-Ever Vanilla Buttercream Frosting.
Helpful Tools and Techniques for Easy Cake Designs
Let’s cover a few basic tools you may want to invest in to make your easy cake designs even easier, plus a technique you’ll want to master:
- Angled Cake Spatula: If you’re spreading frosting on by hand, you may want to invest in an inexpensive spreader. Typically, these are angled to give you better control than a regular knife.
- Disposable Piping Bags: If you’re planning to do some cake decorating more frequently, it probably makes sense to buy a box of disposable piping bags. While you can attempt the Ziploc piping hack, these disposable piping bags will enable you to insert icing tips and ultimately give you much more control.
- Icing Tips: This is where you can really start getting creative. A nice beginner set of icing tips is a great gift for an aspiring junior baker. Paired with piping bags, these will allow them to create much more intricate designs than they would be able to do without them.
- Gel Food Coloring: Unlike regular liquid food coloring you may have used in the past, gel food coloring is thicker and provides much better, brighter colors. A little bit goes a long way!
- Crumb Coat: According to the experts at Wilton, “A crumb coat is a very thin layer of icing used to ‘glue’ crumbs down, seal in the cake’s moisture and provide an even base for additional frosting.” You’ll want to take a minute to learn how to do this before getting started on your easy cake designs.
Now, with the basics of easy cake designs out of the way, who’s ready to get decorating?
Naked Easy Cake Designs
There’s beauty in simplicity. That’s definitely the case with these easy cake designs. Naked cakes are popular right now, and for good reason. They are stunningly beautiful, yet simple, tasteful, and elegant. No frills are needed. These cakes stand on their own and command the room while doing so.
Here are a few examples:
- Easy Naked Cake Tutorial for Beginners by Twist Me Pretty
- How to Make Beautiful Naked Cakes by Just Destiny Home
READ MORE: 5 Cake For Kids Recipes To Bake & Enjoy Together
Cakes Covered in Sprinkles
Who doesn’t love sprinkles? If you’re a grown-up, they make you feel like a kid again. And if you’re a kid, well then you love them that much more!
Sprinkles are adorable, and also very forgiving when it comes to easy cake designs! Just slather a messy coating of frosting on, smooth it out as best you can, and then hand press sprinkles onto the cake for a stunning result.
Plus, sprinkles are no longer what they used to be. Many elaborate varieties now exist with pearls, metallics, fun shapes, and extra-large sizes. Let their imaginations soar!
These are some ideas:
- Sprinkles Cake by I Am Baker
- How To Cover A Cake In Sprinkles by Sugar & Sparrow
- Spooky Black Buttercream and Monsters Sprinkle Cake by Sprinkle Pop
Delightful Drip Cake Designs
Let gravity do the heavy lifting with easy cake designs like drip cakes. These are cool, easy to make, fun, and interesting. After baking and icing your cake, just melt candy melts or melting chocolate in the microwave or a double boiler. Pour it into a piping bag and then pipe it around the edge of the cake, adding an extra squeeze to create longer drips as you go. You can also do this technique with chocolate, caramel, ganache, or glaze.
Consider some of these easy drip cake designs:
- Funfetti Cake Recipe by Sugar Geek Show
- How to Make a Drip Cake with Canned Frosting by Rose Bakes
- Monster Slime Cake by Tastemade
- How to Create a Sprinkle Drip Cake by Sprinkle Pop
READ MORE: 2 Classic Cupcake Recipes: Chocolate & Vanilla
Easy Cake Designs Covered in Candy
Another super simple way of creating easy cake designs is to add candy! And what kids don’t love candy?
Create your crumb coat and follow with a full coating of frosting. You’ll need a little bit more depth for the candy to stick, especially if you’re using larger pieces.
This is where creativity takes over. You can use solid color candies like M&Ms, Skittles, or Sixlets, or get extra creative with things like gummy shapes, Easter candy and peeps, Valentine conversation hearts, candy corn, and more!
Here are a few candy-coated ideas:
- Sixlets Cake for a Blog Birthday by Sprinkle Bakes
- Valentines Conversation Hearts Cake by Sweethaute
- How to Make a Leap Year Cake by Lovely Indeed
- The Kit Kat Cake by The Annoyed Thyroid
READ MORE: 5 Delicious Treats To Make With Yellow Cake Mix
Awesome Ombre Cake Designs
Do your easy cake designs need a little more color? Well, the ombre cake is the perfect choice. After the initial crumb coat goes on, you choose your colors. Create equal portions of different color frostings. For a more subtle look, create various shades in the same color family. Or, get creative and choose completely different hues depending on the occasion.
Fill your piping bags, and pipe the colors in rows around the entire cake. Then take an offset or angled spatula and smooth it around the entire edge. Boom, you now have an ombre cake!
Here are some ombre cake examples with detailed instructions:
- How to Ice an Ombre Cake by Cakegirls
- How to Make a Watercolor Cake by Style Sweet
Easy Cake Designs That Use a Piping Tip
Finally, once they’ve got some piping experience under their belt, it’s time to take it up a notch with these easy cake designs that use one or more creative piping tips.
Similar to how you start on the ombre cake, you’ll also begin this one with a crumb coat, then mix up several color frostings of your choice. Spoon each into your piping bag preloaded with a star tip or other tip, pick your pattern and start piping.
Check out these great piping tip frosting choices, or use our photos for inspiration!
- Simple Rainbow Birthday Cake by Hazel + Gold Designs
- Giant Peppermint Candy Cake by I Scream for Buttercream
There you have it, six easy cake designs that are great for beginners, yet look amazing. Once you help the kiddos set up and get started, sit back and watch them go to town. They are sure to have a blast and their designs will likely blow you away!
Take lots of pics – there are memories (and probably some minor messes!) being made. Let us know how they did in the comments!
WANT TO READ MORE?
If you’ve tried all of these easy cake designs and are ready to let someone else do the baking, check out our article, Need Cake For Delivery? Celebrate With Our 12 Faves!
💖 NEWSLETTER: DAILY READS IN YOUR INBOX 💖
Sign up to receive our picks for the best things to do, see and buy so you can relax and focus on more important tasks! Let us help you be the best version of yourself you can be!
GET MORE FROM DAILY MOM, PARENTS PORTAL
Newsletter: Daily Mom delivered to you
Facebook: @DailyMomOfficial
Instagram: @DailyMomOfficial | @DailyMomTravel | @BestProductsClub
YouTube: @DailyMomVideos
Pinterest: @DailyMomOfficial
📌 LOVE IT? PIN IT!📌
