What a year 2017 has been! We thought it would be fun to wrap up December (and 2017) by writing about the most popular cake trends we’ve seen this year! These have been so fun to make, we can’t wait to see what will be trending in 2018! The most popular cake trends of 2017 (in no particular order) are:
UNICORN CAKES
The Unicorn cake has been one of the most popular cakes of 2017 – we must’ve created one every single colour of the rainbow! These are super fun for us to make! We pipe rosettes in contrasting shades on top and along one side of the cake to give texture and create the look of a ‘mane’. Both the ears and horn are made with white fondant which we then brush with edible gold dust to make it pretty! Lastly, to make the unicorn come to life, we pipe little eyes on the front of the cake. We’ve loved imagining up Unicorn names and personalities with each order!
SEMI NAKED CAKES
Semi Naked Cakes give truth to the meaning ‘beauty is on the inside’. Who needs fondant when plain cakes and icing look just as good, if not better? Semi-naked (or sometimes totally naked) cakes are simply cakes with little to no outer layer of icing! They feel very natural and organic, and have been very popular with couples going for a low key, rustic themed wedding day. It’s been nice to do something a little different and experiment with extra yummy filings, fresh flowers, fruits and caramels, instead of just icing!
DRIP CAKE
This is one of our favourite cakes to make – performing the dripping technique is so much fun! ‘Dripping’ involves slowly pouring ganache on a chilled cake and letting it drip down, trying to get some drips to dry halfway down (and being careful to not let the drips reach the bottom!) It gives such great texture to a cake, and allows us to play with all sorts of colours. Check out this gold drip cake we did for a 50th!
SUCCULENT CAKES
People have gone succulent mad this year! Long gone are the traditional floral themed cakes, this year, succulents have been centre stage! We have loved learning to make succulents with icing – it is really crazy how realistic they look when piped on the cake! For our succulent cakes we begin by icing the cake a relatively neutral shade, allowing for the succulent icing to shine. For the succulent shades, we use a mixture of muted purples, greens and browns – a lot different to our usual icing shades!
GOLD FOIL
It seems like gold and metallic have taken over the world in 2017 – we have seen it incorporated into stationery, furniture – and a LOT of people have requested gold foil when ordering their cakes. The concept of gold foiling is relatively easy, as it is just transferring edible gold sheets onto a cake – however it is slightly temperamental and quite hard to do. We will point out that gold foiling works out to be rather expensive – we suggest reserving gold foil for when you really want to splash out.
WATERCOLOUR
Goodbye, ombre, hello watercolour! Watercolour seems to have become a natural progression from the ever popular ombre trend this year. We love watercolour cakes because you can’t plan how how they will turn out, which is very fun for experimenting! To get the ‘watercolour’ effect means lots and lots of blending, and careful placement of various colours. We love to use watercolour as a base effect, and bring out the colours with additional pops of coloured icing/flowers/garnishes, as we have down for this peachy cake above.
We hope you’ve enjoyed reading this blog post – leave us a comment below on what your trend prediction will be for 2018 – we would love to know!
With love from the Sweet Bites team xxx.
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