Are you in awe of the amazing Pinterest cake designs you see? What people can do with icing and a piping kit is simply beautiful. There are flowers, leaves, basket weave, script, dots, and so much more. If you already like to bake, adding piping to your skill set can be a really fun and creative way to add a new element to your cakes, cookies, and cupcakes.

Piping does have a learning curve. From the icing itself to setting up your equipment and lastly to actually designing the elements, there are a lot of little places you can go wrong. But, it also isn’t so hard that only experts can do it. Everyone can get the basic skills down!

If you’re looking to try your hand at piping yourself, practice is going to make perfect. So find a great icing recipe and go to town practicing on your piping skills. Here’s how to get started.

What you’ll need:

Pastry Bags

You can either pick up disposable plastic pastry bags or invest in some reusable ones. If you need something quick and don’t have time to run out and grab some actual pastry bags, heavy-duty, plastic freezer storage bags also work!

If you’re debating between buying disposable or reusable, you should know that the reusable ones—while they make good economic sense—can be a pain to clean and disinfect. But, of course, they are washable and reusable and better for the environment.

Piping Tips

There are literally so many tips and nozzles!

Open and closed star tips are some of the most popular shapes to choose. Open star tips can make textured ruffles when swirled. Or, if used at an angle, they can create shell-like dollops. This is great for adding to borders of iced cakes. You can also use them to make gems if you do short bursts.

Closed star tips are better at creating a more defined texture. That’s because the ridges of the tip are tighter. These tips are great for piping cupcakes and adding borders to cakes and cookies, depending on what size of tip you choose.

Plain round tips are used for a variety of things. In small sizes, they work for piping out letters and words, small dots and lines of swirled icing, or as centers to sugar blossoms. Bigger sizes can be used for all kinds of designs and for cupcakes.

Petal or ruffle tips are used for creating beautiful ruffle edges on cakes or petals and flowers. If you’re using this tip, make sure the fat edge is the closest to the cake and the thinner end faces upwards.

Leaf tips are pretty obviously named for what they’re used for. Piping leaf shapes, of course! You can find tips made for flat leaves and ones for more ruffled leaves.

Specialty piping is also available and creates some more unique shapes and textures, including grass and basket weave.

Tips for piping:

• Use a larger tip – it’s easier to mess up with smaller tips
• Use a closed star nozzle – they make deeper grooves in the frosting and save you from using excess frosting
• Use stainless steel – these will last a lifetime, opposed to plastic which degrades eventually
• Frosting needs to be the right consistency – too stiff and it will break, too loose and it will lose its shape

Couplers

If you’re working with several kinds of tips during decorating, a coupler will make the process a little easier. It allows you to easily switch tips as you go without having to stop, empty, and refill the piping bag every time you switch.

How to assemble:

Once you have your supplies ready, it’s time to put them together. If you’re using a disposable bag or a heavy-duty freezer bag, start by cutting a little bit of the tip off. Cut a little at a time; you can always cut off more if you need to. Next, put the coupler inside the bag and push it through the hole. Just the tip should be sticking out.

Now add the tip and screw the two parts of the coupler together. It needs to be tight so no icing can squeeze out.

It’s time to add the icing. Take the bag, and while you hold it in your hand, fold half of it down and over your hand. It’ll be like a cuff over your hand. You’ll have one free hand, which you’ll use to scoop the icing into the bag.

Once you’ve added all your icing, squeeze it down into the bag and get rid of all the air pockets. If you have air pockets, it can interrupt the flow of your piping patterns. Once you have any air out, twist the extra bag around the top of the frosting.

To Pipe:

Now it’s time to start practicing!

You’re going to hold the top of the bag with your dominant hand. This is also the hand you’ll be squeezing with. Your other hand steers the bag. If you’re writing, the bag is typically held vertical. When piping designs or trim, it’s usually held at a slant.

If you’re new to piping, you can pull out some parchment paper and practice strokes, letters, and designs. Just scrape the icing back up and add it back to the bag to practice as much as you want!

Once you’re ready, ice your cake and add your designs. Good luck!