Oh buttercream succulents, they’re so darn cute on cakes and cupcakes. I don’t think the succulent trend is going anywhere anytime soon, and that’s a good thing because I can’t get enough!

The great news? Piping buttercream succulents is actually pretty easy. Watch the video below to see how I piped the succulents for this cake, or read on for more information about supplies, coloring, and piping techniques.

To learn more about the tools and type of buttercream you need for piping flowers, check out my post How to Make Realistic Buttercream Flowers.

Supply List

• Italian Meringue Buttercream ( Swiss Meringue or American Buttercream will also work)
• Piping Bags
• Piping tips and couplers (Star tips, leaf tips, round tips, petal tips)
• Gel food coloring

Coloring Your Buttercream

Before you begin piping, you’ll need to think about your color palette. The large majority of buttercream will be green or shades of green, but you might want accent colors as well. A few ideas to think about:

• Try using varied shades of green. Add drop of yellow, blue, or red can take your green in many different directions. I find using various shades of green makes your succulents look more realistic when grouped together.
• You can also stripe the inside of your piping bag with a highlight color like white or a muted pink or purple to create more dimension in your piped leaves.
• I like to use pinks and yellows for flowers, but you can use any colors you like!
• A good tip to remember is that many food colorings will develop and darken over time. You can speed up this process by heating a small amount of colored buttercream in the microwave, then reincorporating it with the rest of your buttercream.

These are just a few ideas for color, but I’ve seen beautiful succulents piped in pretty much every color of the rainbow. Try a quick search on Pinterest for some serious inspiration overload.

Piping Methods

When I set out to pipe buttercream succulents, I think of three “umbrella” categories or techniques which most of the various succulents fall under. These are just categories I’ve made up to guide myself in getting a good variety. In each of these categories the base technique is the same, but by changing the piping tips, colors, and the size of piping the varieties are endless.

The three (poorly named) catergories are:

• “Tall Cactus” – This is what I call anything piped using a vertical motion. These also look nice with a finishing touch of small white spikes and/or flowers. Create variety by piping them large or small, short or tall. Use star, round, leaf, or petal tips to create different textures.

• “Mounded Bush” – I know, I know. The name is weird, but it’s just what I think in my head and I can’t think of anything better. The technique is exactly what it sounds like. Using a star tip or a round tip, pipe buttercream into a mounded shape that ends up looking like a little bush. Again, add variety by changing up the length or thickness of each piped bit.

• “Circular Piping” – This category includes piping in patterns like concentric circles, spirals, or a rose. Leaf shapes work well piped in concentric circles. You can also see below how I used the same petal tip to pipe three completely different succulents just by changing the orientation of the tip.

• Bonus Category : “Fillers” – If you’ve ever created flower planters before, you might have heard the advice that every container should have a thriller, filler, and spiller. In other words, it should have something tall, something to fill in space, and something that spills over the edge. I think this advice also applies to an arrangement of buttercream succulents on a cake! You might want to go back and fill in with extra dots of frosting after the initial succulents are placed. Another thing I love to do is create this little “string of pearls” cascading down the side of the cake with a simple round tip.

Check out a few more piping videos here and here.