How to Decorate a Punk Rocker Style Birthday Cake

The essence of punk is DIY, so when making a punk rock birthday cake, eschew the premade decorations and dive right in.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Cake White frosting Food Coloring Frosting gun or decorating bag and tips

1. Choose a theme. If the recipient of the cake has a favorite band, you can adapt the band's logo to make an appropriate design. For example, for someone with the initials D.K., you could incorporate the Dead Kennedys' logo.

2. Sketch your design on paper before you begin. This will help you with proper spacing on the cake and remind you of the details if your design is complicated, like the Ramones' eagle.

3. Mix the frosting with food coloring to get the colors you need. You can buy black food coloring in the supermarket. Red is tricky to make; red food coloring actually tints frosting pink, so add red gel. (For more about red frosting, see Andrea Meyer's recipes, below.) Neon colors are also readily available in the supermarket, if you need acid green for the Misfits skull, for example.

4. Frost the cake smoothly with a solid background color.

5. Pipe out your design with a frosting gun or pastry bag in the colors you mixed. Refer to your sketch as necessary.

Tips & Warnings

• If your decorating skills are rudimentary, choose song lyrics or a catchphrase, and use decorating gel in a tube. If you need to add spikes to your cake, try cutting down sugar cones to the desired height; frost them in the color of your choice, and add them (gently) to the top of your cake.

References

• Crumbs and Doilies Blog
• Andrea Meyers' Recipes