Thanksgiving Cake Decorating Ideas
If you are looking for a Thanksgiving dessert for kids to help make, maybe check out this darling and EASY Thanksgiving Cake for Kids. To be honest.. we made if for Granny’s birthday. Originall, we thought of a “Leaf Wreath Cake” idea and ordered these super pretty edible leaves online. When the leaves arrived, we discovered they were a little on the small side.. not ideal for a leaf wreath cake decoration!!! But it did give birth to our darling little “Autum Cake Idea”: marzipan hedgehogs, fondant mushrooms, a sprinkle of hazelnuts and our edible leaves… and job done. You have the perfect Autumn Cake Decorating Idea, that not only went down a TREAT for Granny’s birthday, but would also make a fabulous Thanksgiving Dessert/ Thanksgiving cake that the kids can help make. And the best bit…? It really IS SO EASY!! I promise!
Autumn Cake – Ingredients
To be honest, you can make ANY cake that you love. If you have a family staple, go for it. And of course you can also bake a round cake OR a bundt cake. I love bundt cakes, as they turn any favourite recipe “instantly into something special”… you can get great shapes here:
There are so many bundt cake mould shapes to choose from!! Pick one you fancy the most. We have one these very tradtional moulds
We made a HASELNUT cake, as I thought it would fit with the Autumn/ Thanksgiving theme.
- We made this Haselnut Bundt Cake recipe (it is in German, use the auto translate… if you have problems, please leave me feedback and I will look regarding adding an English recipe!). This however is a tasty and really easy recipe to follow.
To decorate your Thanksgiving Cake.. you will also need:
- Edible Autumn Leaves US/ UK (the US ones are SLIGHTLY bigger than the ones I used)
- Hedgehogs: Marzipan, Chocolate, Chocolate Sprinkles, mini Smarties (or a piece of chocolate button/ anything you can find)
- Mushrooms: white fondant icing and red food colouring
- Later you will also need a little icing sugar for “glueing”
We had marzipans left over from our Marzipan Easter Bunnys (I had whole packet left over) and fondant from our PokemonSurprise Cake. Amazingly, I had wrapped it up well and both were still soft and fresh!! So pleased. Needless to say, you don’t have to but both marzipan AND fondant… if you prefer, just get one or the other. Marizpan is slightly yellow, which was great for the hedgehogs, but would make the mushrooms darker too. Fondant is great for the mushrooms and can be died any colour you wish…
Make Your Thanksgiving Cake:
The autumn cake
As mentioned, we made this Haselnut Bundt Cake!!! It really is a great and easy recipe. Please pop over to follow it, or use YOUR favourite family cake recipe. A pumpkin spice cake would be a wonderful substitute.
How to make a marzipan hedgehog
Making the marzipan hedgehogs is super easy! I saw these hedgehogs on FLICKR with no instructions and though we would have a go. Ours are not as neat.. but they are just as cute and my 7yrs old daughter was able to help. She LOVED making them.
Here we go:
- Roll a ball of marzipan (approx 2cm in diameter).
- Pinch the front.
- Gently shape the pinched part into a nose and face shape. Make as many hedgehogs as you need. We popped 6 on the cake, but have a total of 12, so that all guest can have one.
- Melt a little chocolate (we melted in the microwave) and get a bowl of chocolate springles ready.
- Dip the hedgehog in the chocolate and then the sprinkles.
- Now make some eyes using a toothpick.
- And squeeze on your mini smartie.
Your marizpan hedgehogs are finished.
How to make fondant mushrooms
For the fonant toadstools we followed these steps:
- Mix some red food coloring into some of the white fondant to make red.
- Make a little toadstool stem in white.
- Make a red ball and using the end of a chopstick, shape the ball to make a large indent.
- Once all your stems and balls are ready, wash your hands (I find the red fondant always colours my fingers).
- Dab some water on top of your stem (not too much) and pop the red mushroom top.
- Now comes the fiddly bit. Make the tinies white balls.. dab your red mushroom caps with water and pop on your mini balls. Flatten if possible, but leave as they are if you can’t.
Your fondant mushrooms are now finished!
Assembling your Autumnal Cake
The cake was really easy to assemble –
- Mix 2 table spoons of icing sugar with a little water, to make a THICK icing sugar paste.
- Drizzle of the cake – we added some roughly choped hazelnuts at this stage (to resemble the forest floor a little and compliment our haselnut cake flavour).
- Dip your edible autumn leaf one by one in the icing sugar paste and stick onto the cake. Save 3-4 leaves for decorating the cake plate.
- Repeat with 2 hedgehogs and a 2 mushrooms.
- Add some more hedgehogs and mushrooms to the base of your cake and decorate the plate with them. Sprinkle extra haselnuts too if you wish.
Yes it is messy….. but in an “Autumn Leaves” sort of way (or so I kid myself!! Teehee).
Your fabulous but easy Thanksgiving Cake Decorating Idea is now finished and you have a lovely and easy thanksgiving dessert recipe that the kids can make!
I think this cake would also work brilliantly as “Thanksgiving Cupcakes”, if you end up making individual portions…