All About Frosting Tips

As you pass by the bakery aisle in the grocery store, the brightly decorated cakes may catch your eye, but it’s likely that you take for granted just how to achieve the unique, intricate designs of the sugary frosting woven on each cake. Our comprehensive guide to frosting tips breaks down each tip and the icing design it produces.

For basic cake design, you must learn how to pipe the edges of the cake. For this, you can use the round tip, star tip, or a ruffle tip for a whimsical flair. Next comes flower design – the all-time staple of cake decorating. For that you’ll need a flower drop tip, or a rose tip, as well as a leaf tip for embellishment.

When it comes to displaying your message, whether it is “happy birthday,” “congratulations,” or even outlining an image, you will want to use a small, round tip. A good piece of advice for writing clearly with icing is to first outline the message lightly with a toothpick. That way you have a template to follow. Use your non-dominant hand to support the bag while you pipe the icing, and if you go outside the lines, simple scrape the icing away with a butter knife, re-applying the base layer as necessary. Just make sure to keep some of the base layer of icing the original color to touch up mistakes. Read on for many more frosting tips!