Natural and Healthier Cake Decorating Ideas

Decorating a kids birthday cake usually consists of highly artificially coloured and flavoured fondant and candy.

Did you know that some of the so called “edible” cake decorations like silver coated balls also known as silver cachous are made using Titanium dioxide and artificial colourants, FD&C #40,FD&C #5, FD&C #3, FD&C #1 and  some (not all) of the cake glitters are made from brass and plastics – have a read . Regardless even if they don’t contain plastic and brass, most contain artificial colours.

Don’t dismay as you can still decorate your childrens birthday cakes with candy if you wish, but you can use organic and all natural and vegan alternatives. Plus it is very simple to make your own organic fondant and colour it see here.

How To Decorate A Kids Birthday Cake Without Artificial Ingredients or Animal Ingredients

• Try making your own decorative balls, hearts and flowers out of homemade organic fondant, which you can colour naturally with fruit and vegetables – see recipe.

• Organic fruit such as strawberries and blueberries can work. As can freeze dried organic strawberries. Organic sultanas and goji berries are great to use for eyes and flower petals. A goji berry flower with a white icing dot in the middle is very pretty.

• If you are making a tree or bush, use organic parsley or baby spinach ( make sure you wash and try it well).

• Organic Black Licorice from Green Grove Organics can be cut to make outlines or the center of eyes on your figurines and is a healthier option to carbon black, which is used to make food colouring. Though whether you choose to use any black colours is a choice you need to make as ALL black colouring comes from Black Carbon or E153 with is allowed in Australia in the Vegetable Black Carbon and EU but banned in the USA as it is a potential carcinogen even if natural. I also sometimes used the Willows black natural gel, again E153, but I don’t give anyone those pieces to eat!

• Naturally coloured all natural jelly beans are a good option and are usually vegan too.

• Organic, fairtrade, dark chocolate squares can be cut into halves or quarters and then you have tiny triangle chocolate shapes to make into a design or star shape.

• Hoppers Food Colours make not only food colouring, but safer sprinkles and other cake decorations. But as their black and silver coloured products still contain E153 I would not eat them.

• Yummy Earth’s lollipops make great trees or traffic signs on cakes, but the rest of the range may contain gelatin so not suitable for vegans and vegetarians.

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Be sure to check out some more of my healthy, organic, vegan and vegetarian recipes here.