About the Artist

Mary Jo Dowling, CMSA, ICJ, holds a BFA in Illustration from Carnegie Mellon University. She was an Art Director for over 15 years working in layout, web design, graphics, and photography.

She took up cake decorating in 2005. In 2009 she achieved the high honor ranking of Certified Master Sugar Artist from the International Cake Exploration Societé and is currently one of fewer than fifty people to hold this title. In the Spring of 2017 she was awarded the title of ICES Certified Sugar Artist Judge. She has attended major international conventions on sugar art and taken classes with prominent artists in the field. She also demonstrates and teaches her techniques at cake shows and sugar arts meetings around the globe. Her work has appeared in many cake decorating magazines and she was a consultant to American Cake Decorating Magazine. She has competed in TLC’s Ultimate Cake Off and was featured on TLC’s Fabulous Cakes Up, Up, and Away, Boston episode. In 2021, she and her sugar partner Beth Myers won the Holiday Baking Championship: Gingerbread Showdown, Holiday Windows, Shop til' you Drop episode on Food Network.

She is the owner of frosting & crumbs custom bakery located in the North Hills of Pittsburgh, PA.

Since her first competition cake show in 2006 she has earned 8 Best of Show titles, 5 Decorator’s Choice Awards, 2 People’s Choice Awards, A Special Artistic Award, a “Most Artistic piece in the Salon” Award, a “Most Novel Piece in the Salon” award, an ACF Gold medal with Citation & Bronze medal, and a Wilton Award. She has garnered over 33 division titles and numerous prize ribbons. In 2018 she was awarded grand prize in the Retail Bakers of America Pillsbury Baker's Plus Grand Champion Creative Cake Decorating Competition which was a live two day event held at the Atlantic Baking Expo. She was also a regular competitor in the Grove Park National Gingerbread Competition where she has placed in the top 5 spots each year. She was a member of ICES, the International Cake Exploration Societé, where she served as president, and Chairman of the Board of directors as well as Certification and Education Chairman. She served as an ICES state Representative for Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire. She is an international member of the British SugarCraft Guild, belongs to the Retail Bakers of America, and is also a member of the American Culinary Federation. She is also an Icing Smiles Sugar Angel in the Pittsburgh area. To learn more about Icing Smiles please go to www.icingsmiles.org. For more information on ICES, please see www.ices.org.