3rd Year - 2026-27

Our 3rd Year Youth Baking Academy students spent the weekend building their Royal Icing skills and learning just how important consistency is when creating detailed cake designs. Students worked with different Royal Icing consistencies and practiced choosing the right consistency for specific techniques, including piping, accents, and more delicate decorative work. They also created beautiful floating Royal Icing accents — check out those floating hearts! — while learning how patience, control, spacing, and drying time all play a role in successful Royal Icing work. The group also began exploring the basics of overpiping, layering piped details to add depth, texture, and elegance to a cake design. These foundational techniques are an important part of their progression into more advanced wedding cake piping, vintage-style decorating, and intricate Royal Icing work throughout their 3rd Year journey.  They even learning how to pipe rose on the end of toothpicks!!!

I’d probably pair this with a closing line like:

They are officially moving from simply piping designs to building dimension, structure, and artistry with Royal Icing — and this group is off to a beautiful start!

September Class

Our 3rd Year Youth Baking Academy students put in some serious work this weekend as they continued developing their advanced Royal Icing skills.

This month, the focus was on string work, suspended piping, new border patterns, and more detailed Royal Icing techniques. Students practiced creating even, delicate lines, repeating patterns, dimensional accents, and decorative borders while learning how important icing consistency, hand pressure, spacing, and patience are to achieving a clean finished design.

String work can be especially challenging because the Royal Icing is piped away from the surface of the cake, requiring students to control the icing as it falls and connects from one point to another. As you can see in the photos, they worked through different styles, patterns, and approaches — and the progress throughout the weekend was wonderful to watch.

They also continued building their confidence with overpiping and decorative border work, combining multiple techniques to create more intricate, wedding-cake-inspired designs.

A very special thank you to Satin Ice for supporting our Academy and providing the meringue powder our students use for their Royal Icing work. Your continued support helps give our young decorators the opportunity to practice these traditional and advanced techniques hands-on.

We would also like to thank Ceri Griffiths for the incredible resource we are using in class. His book has been such a valuable teaching tool as our students study piping patterns, borders, and traditional cake decorating techniques. Being able to reference professional examples while practicing helps our students understand not only how a design is created, but how those individual piping elements can come together on a finished cake.

Third Year is all about moving beyond the basics and developing greater precision, control, design awareness, and confidence — and this group is definitely putting in the work.

Take a look through the photos and leave our bakers a little encouragement. These techniques take a lot of patience and practice, and they are doing a beautiful job continuing to grow their skills.