When my mother used to have friends over in the evening she wanted to serve a snack (cake and coffee) but most of them were elderly and would turn down the cake because of the frosting.
Problem was solved by using a round single layer cake. She bought 8-inch doilies. Place a doily on top of the cake and sprinkle lightly with confectioner's sugar. Remove the doily and you have a lacy design on the cake without all of the icing.
You can also use stampers that are normally used with ink or paint, just dedicate the stampers to the kitchen and don't use intermix them with craft used one. I just dip them into the powdered sugar and then lightly stamp onto the cake.
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