Cupcake Decorating 101: Cupcake Decorating Tips

We're talking tips today. The cupcake decorating kind that is.You see, I just noticed that ir has been awhile since I followed up on the cupcake baking posts. I guess weve been caught up in cupcake tutorials, you and I.

So just in case, and this is me hoping, that my blog has recently been a favorite of yours,  head on over to the tutorials section for the past posts on cupcake baking. And while  you're at it do check the cupcake topper tutorials, I'm pretty sure you'll find one or two useful. But before you click on the tutorials link, please promise me youll come back to this post. Yeah?

Okay, so let's go back to this post's topic.  I thought I'd show you the decorating tips I usually use when frosting cupcakes and how they look like when piped. I buy all my tips from Cooks Exchange in Glorietta. Sadly, they are closed for the mall's renovation. But they still have branches in Rockwell and Megamall.  All are from Ateco.

 Here are some closed star tips.  Tip #855 is my all-time favorite one. You can see it used all over this blog. I love closed star tips because of the defined swirls they make. A smaller version is tip #846. Tip #854 has more "teeth" than the other two. 

Here is a batch of frosting I prepared so I can show you how they look like piped.

Don't they look pretty? See the well defined swirls? 

Now, here are some open star tips. While the closed star tips curve at the top, the open star tips are designed to have more frosting on the center, creating a more stable top for a cupcake. So, if you have a heavy cupcake topper, and you want swirls on your frosting, go for the open star tips instead of the closed ones. 

Here's how they look like piped. Swirls are less defined than the what the closed star tips create but are more stable

Lastly, if you want to go for simple effect, here are some plain round ones. Tips with numbers 809, 806 and 805 should be able to do the trick.

Here's how they look like on top of cupcakes. Oh wow! Just looking at these, I just realized (again), by using the round tips, the cupcake to frosting ratio is almost 1 is to 1! Sweet!

Hope this post helps you guys! More to come! :)