Easy Cakes to Impress Your Guests

Cake. Sweet, fluffy and light, smeared with frosting, whipped cream or dusted with powdered sugar, cake is always a rallying point at a party. It’s very hard to have a milestone event without this hallmark of celebration.

When I threw my friend’s “baby love” baby shower recently, I decided to focus on cakes and make them in as many variations as I could think of to satisfy any craving the mother-to-be may have. The part I forgot about when making all those cakes was that I would eventually have to decorate them all. After a practice run or two and some helpful advice, I was able so come up with a few styles that anyone can pull off.

Rustic. The base frosting I used for all these cakes was a Swiss Meringue Buttercream. The Swiss variety is stiffer and held its shape better than traditional buttercream, and it is totally delicious. The butter rich Le Reine cake below got a “rustic” treatment. This is the art of the perfectly imperfect—I used a spatula to flatten the frosting to the cake, but not so much so that is was perfectly smooth. The sugar flowers placed around the cake made for a professional finish. This is a fabulous decorating style for a woodland (with chocolate icing) or shabby chic theme party.

Ruffle cakes are extremely popular at parties these days—and for good reason. They are beautiful and take about fifteen minutes to decorate once you have your frosting done. (You definitely want a nice stiff Swiss Meringue Buttercream for this!) There are many tutorials out there on how to make these, but I liked this one from My Sweet and Saucy. To finish the cake and cover the little bit in the middle where the seams came together, I used fondant pearls. These come in lots of colors, so you can get creative! The ruffle cake is ideal for any girly birthday or shower.

Coconut cover. As a total sucker for coconut cake, I couldn’t pass up having this light and fluffy dessert available. After putting on the base layer of frosting, I pressed flaked coconut into the side and sprinkled it over the top. Again, using some sugar flowers, I created a polished look for the cake.

Sugar veil lace work. Since everything else at the party was very delicate and lacy, I gave this product called Sugar Veil a try. These doilies that I pressed into the side of the cake are actually made from sugar and are edible! They are thin and as fragile as paper, but they’re really a conversation piece. This cake style would work wonderfully with any feminine or shabby chic party.

Of course, there was more than cake for my guests—JP Creatibles made these incredible cookies and Sweet Temptations provided these very special chocolate covered oreos for the event. Both tasted even better than they looked if you can believe it.

I am very much a novice at cake decorating—in fact, I usually leave my party cakes to the professionals. All the cakes I created for this event were extremely easy to make look beautiful and something anyone could do at home !