So, you've decided you want to try your hand at decorating a cake. You want it to blow people's socks off, but you're nervous since it's your first time, or perhaps you've had bad experiences in the past.

Don't worry. Creating great looking (and tasting) cakes is really quite easy.

Lets start by judging your confidence level. Do you think you could bake the cake as well as decorating it? If so, nip over to the cake recipe section and see if anything takes your fancy. If you don't think you want to do that, then there's plenty of options down at the shop or bakery.

Next lets find out how much time you have - the less time, the fewer options open to you. If time is short, assembling pre-made parts such as flowers, sugar paste modelling or pre-made decorations is your best plan. If you have a week or so you can think about doing something more involved (not hard! Just needs time to dry for instance) such as the traced panels.

Spend 10 minutes, take a browse through the inspiration, the techniques and recipes, and see if anything springs to mind.