Did you know that many of those royal icing roses you see on cakes were purchased ready-made by professional cake decorators?

It’s true.

It is very tempting to do this. However, consider this. If you buy pre-made roses, then you won’t be motivated to learn how to pipe your own beautiful icing roses, and you’ll have to kiss buttercream icing roses, along with more dollars from your pocketbook, good-bye.

The art of piping icing roses, whether you use royal or buttercream icing does call for patience, persistence and a steady hand. It also requires a good icing recipe and some basic cake decorating techniques.

Why bother learning to make icing roses when there are so many pretty and easy to create flowers waiting to be piped?

Roses are simply the most popular blossom found in cake decorating. Whether on a beloved child’s birthday cake or a bride and groom’s wedding cake, the rose symbolizes love.

This classic beauty really can be easy to make. The key is learning and then practicing a good technique.

Many of those decorators who give up and buy cement hard sugarcrafted roses have worn their patience thin by unknowingly practicing a technique the wrong way - or never learning the right one to begin with.

If you’re like me, then you know how confusing the art of piping icing roses can seem in a crowded cake decorating class, and how when we finally find a good class, we forget half of what we learned by the time we get home!

A class that sends you home with a step-by-step video would be the best type of icing rose class to take. To show you what I mean, here’s a video on icing roses:

Click here to watch highlights from the
“How To Make Icing Roses” video.

This video is from “Cake Decorating Made Easy!”

Here’s what one of our readers wrote about our Video Books:

“I managed to access it straight away!! I sat glued to the computer watching the videos and reading as soon as I got it.
It is wonderful!!!
I have lots of instruction manuals that I have tried to follow in the past. Watching your videos once has made all the difference to my cake decorating skills.

I especially love the flower making and will be making cakes overflowing with flowers ASAP (its spring here in Australia so perfect timing!!!).

Thank you again for a wonderful, informative, and affordable product.”

Fiona (Wagga Wagga, sunny Australia)

The buttercream or royal icing rose is one of the few flowers that can be made without using waxed paper because it is transferred directly onto the cake when completed.

Instead, you start with a base of icing on the flower nail. The trick is getting the base right because as the foundation, it’s the most important part.

Your roses can be any color you desire.

Starting with the base, take your filled parchment bag with tip 12, and holding the tip slightly off the surface of the nail, squeeze. Let the icing build up and then lift, slowly drawing upward and squeezing until you have a little cone.

Another important element to the icing rose is color.

Choose a color that will compliment your cake. Usually you will want this color to stand out, so that it doesn’t fade into the background of the cake’s icing.

Even if you are decorating a cake with a monochromatic color scheme, you can still make the roses a slightly brighter or paler shade so that they are noticed.

Most icing roses are pink, yellow, peach, red or white. Once a rose is piped, it can be made to look more realistic by shading with coloring dust. Adding leaves to your icing roses will complete the look.

If you are also interested in the human and business side of cake decorating, check out our article on the legendary Magnolia Bakery.

And, here are a couple more tips for your icing roses.

Buttercream makes far better tasting roses than royal icing, which creates roses that dry brittle and hard. They last forever, but aren’t really meant to be eaten.

You can flavor your rose buttercream to match the flavor of your cake. And, if you are using buttercream, keep your cake in a cool and dry place until serving since buttercream is vulnerable to heat and humidity.

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Samantha Mitchell, Co-Author
“Cake Decorating Made Easy!” Vol. 1 & 2.
The World’s First Cake Decorating Video Books

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