A speedy way to produce a themed cake begins with the decorations. Themed cake decorations are a snap and they don’t have to be edible to set a tone and wow factor. They also don’t have to be expensive. Go to a dollar store or a store that carries a toy department and look for the bags of plastic toy army men, firemen, policemen, animals, dinosaurs, bugs and cars etc.
The little plastic toys are a great way to produce themed cakes. You can also use party favors to instantly create a theme. Sets of toy rings, party horns and hats for instance, are all party favors that can be stuck into the icing of a cake in an order that sets the mood and theme. For example, you might place a package of party favor horns on your cake and pour edible cake sprinkles in the shape of a note in front of each horn opening to give the illusion that the horn is being played. Or you might set a couple of small plastic glasses such as those used in “New Year’s Celebrations” on each side of your cake and fill the glasses with an assortment of edible candy like “Hershey’s Kisses and Butterfingers.”
You can see in the above examples that themed cake decorations don’t have to be completely edible to create a story but that they can be combined with edible decorations and candies to complete a beautiful finished look.
Another example of combinations is to place a path of jellybeans in your icing and sit a small toy car in the path to make it appear that the car is traveling. Or you might make two paths of jellybeans and place a toy car coming and one going in each lane. In an instant, you have created a themed cake with cars and jellybeans.