How to Ice Cupcakes Like a Professional

Icing cupcakes like a professional takes patience as you need to work on specific techniques to achieve a flawless finish. However, with the correct tools and practice you can succeed. Then, you will be able to use your new talent by decorating cupcakes and giving them to friends and family as distinctive gifts. Once you have mastered being able to ice cupcakes, you can create seasonal characters such as reindeer or Halloween spiders. Add this to my Recipe Box.

Unscrew the piping bag coupler into two pieces-- a plastic ring and small tube. Place the small tube inside the bag. The coupler is a plastic fitting used to swap between different piping bag tips easily.

Choose a piping bag tip and slot it through the plastic ring. The width of the ring and tip are the same, so the tip will be held by the ring. Secure the tip and plastic ring to the piping bag by screwing it onto the small tube from the outside the bag.

Put the piping bag in a tall glass, with the tip entering the glass first. Then, fold 2 inches of bag over the top rim of the glass.

Fill the bag with icing, using the spatula, then pick up the bag by gathering the folded edges upward and twisting them together. Grip the bag and squeeze it gently to push the icing down, ready for adding to the cupcakes.

Hold the cupcake on a flat surface, so that it does not move when you pipe the icing onto it. With your other hand, hold the piping bag at the top.

Create a swirl design. This is a basic professional icing technique. Hover the tip of the piping bag above the outer edge of the cupcake, Squeeze out the icing steadily, while you move the tip around the edge to make a circle. However, just before the circle is completed, move the tip inward by 1/4 inch and continue to move the tip in a circle. This creates a swirl effect with icing.

Stop piping when you reach the center of the cupcake and cannot complete another swirl. You will be left with a professional swirl of icing on the cupcake.

Practice different styles of icing. Add a grass tip to your piping bag and create the 'bathing cap' design. Starting in the middle of the cupcake, squeeze to release small tufts of icing that look like grass. Release your squeeze and repeat until the cupcake is covered.

Make a flower pattern on your cupcake. Start in the middle and, while you squeeze the icing out, make strips going to the edge of the cake. Repeat this until the whole surface is covered.

Add another layer of stripes on top of the lines created in Step 9. However, instead of piping to the edge of the cupcake, shorten the stripes so that they stop 1/4 inch from the edge. Finally, pipe a third layer. Once again, shorten the stripes by 1/4 inch for a layered effect.

Change the piping tip to a round tip, and use yellow icing. Then, add dots of icing in the center of the cupcake, to mimic the pollen of a flower.

Tips

- Experiment with different piping bags tips to create different patterns and new designs.

- Squeeze the piping bag gently, but firmly, to ensure an even, steady flow of icing. Don't squeeze too quickly or too much icing will come out.

- Wash the bags immediately after you have used them, so that they can be used again.