How would you go about decorating a cheesecake and what kind of icing would you use......Can anyone help?

There have been some forums on this and they say you can use buttercream or ganache to ice. I haven't tried it but am curious to. I think it would be easier to apply ganache first with buttercream accents, but like I said I don't know.

exactly right! I have made many cheesecakes nd then covered them in ganache. After that, the sky is pretty much the limit with your decorations.

Ok now what is ganache? lol I'm new to all of this

NM I answered my own question. I have to use cherry topping on. it's for my hubby's 30th birthday and he always have cherry cheesecake on his birthday. such a pain sometimes he is......LOL

I just did cheesecakes for a wedding July 4th.. I frosted them with the crusting cream cheese frosting and they were a big hit. I also did a cheesecake for an anniversary, and used buttercream frosting which worked well. That cake also had strawberries on the top.

For some reason I can't find a picture of the cheesecake I make ALL the time. Anyway what I do is cover the top with ganache and then use chocolate or vanilla buttercream to make spiral swirls from the outside to the center (jeez does that make sense?, kinda like wheel spokes) Then I make a fan with chocolate triangles and lean them against the spirals. Finally I sprinke with cocoa. Sounds confusing but it really looks nice!

I, personally think that cheesecakes don't need frostings and icings....a little fruit is all I ever put on and everyone always wants that first! But...here is a simple design idea that you might want to use....

Reserve a little bit of the cheesecake mixture and mix it with a little food coloring (or 2 or 3 colors). After you have filled your cake pan with the cheesecake mixture...use the colored mixture and pipe a design right onto the cake. I have used pink and green to make simple, lovely flowers. It settles into the mixture but if you are very careful not to shake the pan....When the cheesecake is cooked, you will have the colored design right in it....it's a really lovely effect.....perhaps you can even right your DH's name in it.....

and...if it doesn't come out the way you wanted it to....just cover it with fruit!

Have fun!

I know some people like buttercream, but my opinion is that it would take away from the taste of the cheesecake, so I don't use it.
Instead, I use whipped cream, whipped to a nice stiff consistency. I just use it to ice the sides of the cake only and then pipe a shell border around the bottom and top edges. Then I use a fruit filling for the top.
I only started doing this because it looked a lot more presentable. The taste of the whipped cream is so light anyway, that it doesn't take away from the cheesecake. You can also add a bit of flavour to the whipped cream if you want to.