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5 Top Tips for Decorating Christmas Treats

If you're thinking of making festive treats this year, read our top tips for decorating Christmas cakes, cookies, gingerbread, cakesicles and more using Katy Sue food-safe silicone moulds. Choose from our huge range of festive themed moulds, from snowmen to Father Christmas, pine cones to nutcrackers – our moulds are easy to use and will make your Christmas bakes look professional ... but you don't have to be!

Follow our top tips to get the best from your moulds and enjoy an afternoon creating sweet decorations – get the kids or grandkids involved too for a fun festive activity.

1: Choose your topping

You can use fondant (sugar paste), marzipan, chocolate, candy and boiled sugar in our food safe moulds, so choose a topping to create your decoration considering how you want your finished bakes to look. If you want to add colour, choose fondant – we recommend a firm fondant such as Renshaw Extra – or white marzipan (ideal if decorating with children). If you're looking for decadance, go with chocolate, whilst boiled sugar or Isomalt will create magical translucent decorations (be extremely careful with boiled sugar as it's super hot!).

2: Dust or grease

If you're using fondant (sugar paste) or marzipan, it's best to create a light barrier within the mould to help it release the decoration. Either brush the mould with cornflour and tap out any excess, or very lightly rub the mould with vegetable fat such as Trex or coconut oil (never use an animal based fat). This step isn't usually required when using with melted chocolate or boiled sugar, unless using modelling chocolate.

3: Mould your decorations

For fondant or marzipan, press the paste into the mould, making sure to fill all those lovely details. You can use your fingers, or you can roll over with a rolling pin, trimming any excess with a palette knife.

For chocolate, melt and carefully pour, spoon or pipe into the mould. If you overfill, simply scrape off the excess with a palette knife or Flower Pro Flexi Scraper. Leave chocolate to set in the fridge, or let boiled sugar cool at room temperature.

Flex the mould, bending the edges to help release the fondant or marzipan – you can flex our high quality silicone quite a lot – then turn over and release the decoration onto a sheet of kitchen roll or baking parchment and leave to dry and firm up.

For chocolate and boiled sugar, once completely cooled and set, flex the mould to release – do this with care as your cooled candy can be brittle.

4: Colour and sparkle!

There are so many ways to colour your moulded decorations!

You can use a little edible gel to colour your fondant before you add it to the mould – try colouring small amounts to press into different areas of the decoration.

To paint your fondant, mix gel colours or edible coloured dusts with a tiny amout of vodka (or you can use lemon extract but this may affect the taste) and paint as desired.

For some Christmas sparkle, sprinkle or brush your fondant, marzipan or chocolate with edible lustre dust or use edible lustre spray.

5: CHEAT!

Shhh, we won't tell! You only have so much time to wrap all the presents, decorate the house and watch the all the cheesy Christmas films, so don't worry if you don't have time to bake everything too!

Watch our Christmas Cheat Treats video and Ceri Griffiths will show you how to decorate store-bought cupcakes, cookies, mini rolls and more:

WATCH: Christmas Cheat Treats

You're all done! Wash your mould in warm soapy water or pop it straight in the dishwasher. Leave to air dry, making sure it's completely dry before storing, ready to be used again and again.