There is a long history of cake decorating for various occasions. To make a very long story long, a decorated cake is usually the center of the party in most cases. Nearly every celebration in today’s world includes a cake. Whether it is a birthday, a wedding, an anniversary, a going away party, or a baby shower cake, nearly every occasion includes cake. So many great occasions in our lives are celebrated by baking cakes.

Even though in ancient times the Egyptians knew how to bake a cake, the history of cake decorating has been traced back to the 17th century. During that time the pans used to bake the cake in were introduced across the Europe.

Although cakes were baked in the mid 17th century, the elaborately decorated cakes were the monopoly of the rich and famous. Europe’s aristocracy displayed elaborately decorated cakes at their banquets.
About two hundred years later, the history of cake decorating took a turn. During the mid 19th century, the French began including a decorated cake as a part of their dessert at the end of the meal. It was to pacify the sweet craving when the meal is over. This was the beginning of the tradition to eat cake as a dessert. Delicately decorated cakes began to make their appearance at the dining tables as desserts. As this began in France, it quickly spread throughout Europe.

In 1840 came new technology, thus became the production of baking soda and baking powder. Around the same time, temperature-controlled ovens became available. With the help of temperature-controlled ovens, baking soda and baking powder, cake baking become much easier.

Over the years cake baking evolved and people began to identify the different methods of cake decorating. The Lambeth Method of decorating the cake uses dimensional over piping of borders which are very intricate. It uses one layer of icing over the other to get three dimensional effects. Joseph Lambeth published a book titled ‘the Lambeth Method of Cake decoration and practical Pastries’, and in this book he described step by step instructions for piping embellished borders.

In 1929, Wilton Enterprises started a school for cake decorating for interested people. Dewey McKinley Wilton was a sugar artist who began the cake decorating business during the great depression. He began to decorate wedding cakes for famous hotels and clubs. The Wilton’s began to market their cake decorating products in 1947.
The more popular cake decorating became, the more manufacturers came out with their own cake decorating kits and supplies. With the help of these kits and supplies, decorating cakes became even easier.

Even in today’s world, the industry of cake decorating is thriving. It is an integral part of the sugar craft industry. It has become a very popular form of art. In the United States, Australia, South Africa, and Northwestern Europe, many unique styles of cake decorating have been discovered.

We hope you can have the courage to decorate your own cakes for anything from weddings to birthdays. It really is a lot of fun and a very useful hobby. You may even get so good that you want to start your own cake decorating business.

An interesting Wedding cake decorating video

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 8th, 2009 at 3:15 am and is filed under Cake Decorating. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.