All men play poker and all women love shoes, right? Maybe not, but these tiered cakes allow decorators and customers to have fun with some gender stereotypes. The designs are ideal for any type of occasion and can easily be modified to fit any size tier. The use of plastic decorations also helps speed decorating without detracting from the detail of the design.

1. For a poker cake, stack a 6-in. round tier on top of a 10-in. round tier, and airbrush them green. Use tip No. 6 to pipe a dot bottom border around both tiers. Alternate among red, black and white dots of icing.

2. For a birthday cake, use tip No. 6 to pipe white numerals for the appropriate age on the side of the 6-in. tier.

3. On the bottom tier, pipe an appropriate message in red icing using tip No. 2. Then, place poker chips (chocolate mint coins) around the bottom borders. Arrange small cards into “hands,” and place them on the cake. Place red dice on top of the cake, and randomly pipe the card suits (hearts, spades, diamonds and clubs) on the sides of the cake.

1. For a shoe cake, base ice a 6-in. tier and a 4-in. tier. On the bottom tier, use tip No. 2 to pipe criss-crossing black diagonal lines. Then, fill in the resulting diamonds.

2. Use tip No. 3 to pipe a hot pink dot border around the bottom tier. Add a hot pink band border around the top of the bottom tier. With tip No. 2, pipe a black band border around the bottom of the top tier.

3. With tip No. 3, pipe hot pink dots of icing around the sides of the top tier. Wrap a string of rhinestones around the top of the 6-in. tier.

4. On top of the cake, pipe a circle of white icing to add height to the shoe topper. Then, place a strand of rhinestones around the white icing ring.

5. Place a shoe topper on top of the ring of icing. Add additional pink polka dots to the top of the cake. This cake is ideal for anyone who would rather “Forget Diamonds, Buy Me Shoes.”

Shannon Sylvester is a decorator at Rick's Bakery, Fayetteville, Ark., and is the 2005 winner of RBA's (The Retail Bakers of America) Creative Decorating Competition. Sylvester has almost 20 years of decorating experience and decorates an average of 30 cakes a day. Since winning the competition, she has become a regular demonstrator at regional bakery shows and seminars.