Browse Decorating Techniques

1M Swirl

Difficulty: Easy

Here is another quick way to decorate your cupcakes or cakes. It just takes minutes to pipe a fancy iced swirl and add colorful sprinkles.

Baby Booties

Difficulty: Easy

The perfect little topper for your baby shower cupcakes.

Ball

Difficulty: Easy

The ball shape makes bold borders and is the first step to learn for figure piping. Vary the basic look by adding stars, dots or spirals on the ball shapes.

Balloons

Difficulty: Easy

Let your cupcakes mirror the party décor. Make the balloons piped on top the same color as the real balloons you use as decoration!

Banana

Difficulty: Easy

Add a single banana or a bunch to the top of your cupcake. Could the banana decoration be a clue that the cupcake is banana flavored?

Bead

Difficulty: Easy

The bead shape makes great borders or frames and makes great accents to letters and designs.

Cactus

Difficulty: Easy

The cactus is a must-have for western themed cakes, and it couldn’t be easier. Elongated shells come together, topped by pull-out needles. We used tip 199 for great texture.

Chicken

Difficulty: Easy

Chickens provide perfect practice for building up figure piped bodies and heads. You’ll then add a tapered tail and bead-motion wings, for a nicely-detailed bird. These playful chickens can be make ahead of time using Royal Icing as shown below, but they can also be done directly on your cake or cupcakes using Buttercream Icing, just omit the feet.

Christmas Trees

Difficulty: Easy

Grow a forest of Christmas Trees using ice cream cones as your base. Cut the cone to any size—just dampen to where the base will be and use a scissors or a small paring knife to cut around the cone.

Circus Clown

Difficulty: Easy

A Clown looks great sitting up or laying down! Use the basic upright or horizontal technique to position the body, add arms, legs and ruffles, then top him off with our Small Derby Clowns head pick.

Climbing Leaf Border

Difficulty: Easy

Update the classic leaf border with added lushness. Build rows of graceful foliage from the bottom of your cake, leading to a row of your favorite flowers.

Combing a Cake

Difficulty: Easy

Create a textured surface on the cake sides.

Covering Cupcakes with a Round Tip Swirl

Difficulty: Easy

Your homemade cupcakes will be even more tempting when you add a pretty peak of icing on top! We used tip 2A here, but any large round tip will work.

Dots

Difficulty: Easy

Pipe dots for flower centers, faces, figure piping and border effects. When making large dots, lift the tip as you squeeze to allow icing to fill out completely.

E-Motion

Difficulty: Easy

E-Motion works best for bottom borders or western lariats. If you need to change positions while piping a border, push in tip at the end of the “e” and continue for a smooth look.

Fern

Difficulty: Easy

The airy look of the Fern provides the touch of greenery a cake top bouquet needs. For each frond, pipe a series of leaves which get gradually smaller as you approach the top.