Why people get hooked on decorating

Every session ends with something to eat or give away, so practice cakes never go to waste.
Progress shows fast: your third smooth-sided cake looks clearly better than your first.
Birthdays, holidays and bake sales give you a steady list of reasons to make the next one.
It is a calm, hands-on craft. Turning the stand and piping a border takes focus but no artistic training.

A piping bag with a metal tip piping buttercream rosettes around the top of a caramel drip cake — Rosettes from a large star tip, one even squeeze each

Round and shaped sugar cookies decorated with royal icing snowmen, trees and lettering

Where your piping hand can go next

Cookies, cake pops, sugar art or gingerbread

Open a direction to see what to make first. Each one has a button that adds its gear to the kit, and you can switch on as many as you like.

Cookie decoratingFlat cut-out cookies outlined and flooded with royal icing, then detailed with fine lines and edible markers.

Start here

Bake or buy a dozen plain cut-out sugar cookies, mix one batch of royal icing, and practice outlining with a thick icing and flooding with a thinner one on half the batch.

King Arthur Baking: Royal Icing

Cake popsCake crumbs mixed with frosting, rolled into balls, dipped in candy coating and set on sticks.

Start here

Crumble an unfrosted cake into a bowl with a few spoonfuls of your buttercream, roll 12 balls, chill them, and dip them in melted candy coating on sticks.

Sally's Baking: Homemade Cake Pops

Sugar artHand-modeled gum paste flowers and poured or pulled isomalt pieces such as gems, sails and clear accents.

Start here

Melt a few spoonfuls of pre-cooked isomalt in short microwave bursts, wearing gloves, and pour it into a silicone gem mold; then shape one gum paste flower on a counter lightly greased with shortening.

Sugar Geek Show: Isomalt guide

Gingerbread house makingBuilding walls and roofs from gingerbread, gluing them with stiff royal icing and trimming with candy.

Start here

Assemble a pre-baked gingerbread house kit this season, gluing the walls with stiff royal icing and letting them set for an hour before adding the roof. Print the free template when you are ready to bake your own walls.

Sugar Geek Show: Construction gingerbread house recipe and template

In-depth guides for sugar art and gingerbread

Your first decorated cake

A person spreading a thin coat of frosting around a layered sponge cake with a long offset spatula on a wooden turntable — The crumb coat: thin, then into the fridge

Tested first frosting and royal icing

What you can decorate in your first month

Crumb-coated layer cake

A two-layer 8-inch cake with a smooth top and sides, the base skill behind every other design.

Rosette cupcakes

A dozen plain bakery cupcakes piped with a large open star tip, the quickest way to practice even pressure.

Shell border and lettering cake

A single-layer cake with a piped border and a short message, good for learning a round tip.

Fondant-accent cake

A buttercream cake topped with simple fondant shapes cut with a small knife or the wide end of a piping tip.

Skills to practice first

Frosting consistency

Stiff for borders and flowers, medium for most piping, thin for crumb coats. Adjust with a teaspoon of milk or a spoonful of sugar at a time.

Crumb coat and chill

A thin sealing coat, then 20-30 minutes in the fridge, is what makes the final coat clean.

Smooth sides on the turntable

Keep the smoother at a fixed angle and let the stand do the moving. Check that the turntable spins freely and sits level before each session.

Tip angle

Hold the bag straight up for rosettes, stars and dots, at about 45 degrees for borders and writing, and stop squeezing before you lift away.

Mixing colors

Gel color is strong, so add it with a toothpick and remember that buttercream deepens as it sits for an hour.

Handling fondant

Knead it until warm and pliable, roll it on a dusting of powdered sugar, and apply it only over chilled, firm buttercream.

Stainless steel round, star and grass piping tips standing on a pale surface — Round, star and grass tips: each one shapes the frosting differently

Which frosting does what

King Arthur Baking: A breakdown of (almost) every frosting Free guide to which frostings pipe, spread, crust or hold up in heat

A three-tier fondant cake covered in handmade sugar roses, blossoms and daisies on a gold board

Edible labels, safe icing, hot sugar

Only edible on food, and respect hot sugar

Only decorations labeled edible go on food. The FDA warns that glitters and dusts marked only "non-toxic" or "for display" are not edible; edible ones carry an ingredient list. Take non-edible toppers off before serving.
Make royal icing with meringue powder, which is pasteurized, rather than raw egg whites.
Do not push wires, toothpicks, dowels or non-food flowers straight into a cake, where they touch the part people eat.
Frosting made with butter and milk keeps at cool room temperature for a day or two; fillings with cream cheese, whipped cream or fresh fruit go in the fridge.
In sugar art, melted isomalt and cooked sugar run well above boiling and stick to skin, causing serious burns. Wear gloves, keep children and pets away, and keep a bowl of cold water nearby.
Allergies: the first frosting contains dairy and meringue powder contains egg. For dairy-free guests make the frosting with shortening only and a plant milk; for egg-free royal icing, whip the liquid from a can of chickpeas (aquafaba) with powdered sugar in place of meringue powder and water. Label what you serve.

Read before you buy glitter or dust

FDA: Avoid non-edible food decorative products Free advisory on telling edible glitters and dusts from ones labeled only non-toxic or for display

What trips beginners up

Beating frosting on high speed whips in air bubbles that show up as pits on smooth sides. Finish the last minute of mixing on low.
Overfilling the piping bag and squeezing from the middle, so frosting pushes out the top and lines wobble.
Expect your first few cakes to have bumpy sides and lopsided borders. Smooth sides usually take three to five cakes.
Buttercream softens on a warm day or under your hands. Work in a cool kitchen and return the cake to the fridge when it starts to sag.
Royal icing crusts within minutes in open air. Keep the bowl covered with a damp towel and the bag tips wrapped while you work.

How the kit is built

The essentials are the tools you use on every cake (turntable, spatulas, smoother, piping bags and tips, gel colors) plus the shelf-stable half of the first buttercream recipe. A sturdy turntable is the one item worth paying more for: look for a heavy base that does not slide and a top that spins without wobbling. The recommended lines widen what you can make, from royal icing borders to fondant accents. The four add-ons cover the directions people move into next, and the one optional line, a fondant smoother, is for when you start covering whole cakes in fondant.

A pink layer cake topped with piped buttercream peony, carnation and chrysanthemum flowers — Where the same tips and bags can take you

Stock the cake bench

Every line below is something you buy online. The ingredient lines cover the shelf-stable half of the tested buttercream, and the add-on lines stay out of the kit until you switch on their direction. Clicking a card selects it in the kit, and clicking the selected card again takes that line out.

Rotating cake turntable

Essential · Core equipment

Smooth sides and even borders come from turning the cake while your hand stays still. It is the core tool of the hobby.

budget

Kootek Cake Stand Turntable for Party, Base Giratoria para Pastele

4.5(4848)

$13.99

Cake Decorating

Why people get hooked on decorating

Where your piping hand can go next

Your first decorated cake

Skills to practice first

Edible labels, safe icing, hot sugar

What trips beginners up

How the kit is built

Stock the cake bench

Rotating cake turntable

Offset spatula set

Icing smoother scraper

Disposable piping bags

Piping tip set with couplers

Gel food coloring set

Powdered sugar

Vegetable shortening

Pure vanilla extract

Fine table salt

Meringue powder

Cake leveler

Cardboard cake boards

Ready-to-roll fondant

Edible sprinkles mix

Cookie cutter set

Cookie scribe tool

Edible food coloring markers

Cake pop sticks

Candy melts

Cake pop stand

Isomalt nibs

Silicone gem mold

Heat-resistant gloves

Gum paste

Gum paste modeling tool set

Pre-baked gingerbread house kit

Fondant smoother