You have sifted the flour, beaten the eggs, softened the butter, mixed the ingredients, put it in the oven to bake voila you have a beautiful cake. Now it time to decorate.

The art of cake decorating is a fun and rewarding one. You can decorate cakes for hobby or for profession. Impress all your friends with a beautiful flag cake on the 4th of July. Or take an artfully decorated cake to your next family potluck. You can even delight all of the children in your family on their birthday with a cake that is decorated with their favorite cartoon character or super hero.

One of the quickest designs is a pattern using any of the following: semi-dried fruits, glace fruits, angelica, cherries and different types of nuts. But keep to three or four varieties, otherwise the design becomes too cluttered. If the top of the cake is rounded, cut off, and upturn the cake so the base becomes the top surface. Boil half a jar of apricot jam and press through a sieve. Brush the top surface of the cake with the jam, and cover with a design of fruit and nuts - a circular design for a round cake and straight lines for a square cake. To give the decoration an attractive shine (and to hold the fruit and nuts in place) brush over with jam, and lastly, tie a wide, red or green ribbon around the cake. A similar decoration can be made with marzipan fruits.

Cake decorating is a hobby and a delight for all seasons. It is a fun and rewarding art to bake cakes yourself and decorate them for your family, it can also save you money. It is an artistic skill that anyone can master with a little expert guidance intermingled with a some good cake decorating tips and ideas. It is an art form that will keep exercising your imagination, continue building your skills, and will always make others happy. Decorating cakes is very self nurturing, since you will feel good when you give your cake to another or share it with them.