The long aisle of cake decorating tools can seem intimidating-what do I need? Do I really need all of this stuff to make my kid’s birthday cake? Here are 5 essential cake decorating tools and 3 that are a waste of money to help you get started!
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When I first started decorating cake, I thought that I needed every flower former, petal maker, cake pan and piping tip known to man. As it turns out, I routinely use pretty much the same small set of tools for every cake. Also, there is really quite a lot of garbage out there that masquerades itself as cake decorating tools.
5 Essential Cake Decorating Tools:
- Basic Set of Piping Tips-tips I use the most are several different sizes of open round tip, my 1M star tip, and my pedal tip. Tip I love the most? My grass and hair tip because it’s fun.
- Offset Spatula (or two)-I use a small offset spatula the most (in fact, I got rid of my large one once I got a bench scraper). But it’s really the best tool for smoothing on your frosting.
- Turntable-In order to get those absolutely smooth sides (or at least close to it) you need a turntable. It also gets your cake up higher so it’s easier to see/work with if you’re standing. I personally prefer standing to sitting while decorating cake but that is because I am able to. A turntable that is shorter works better if you prefer/need to sit while decorating.
- Piping Bags-I like to have both 12″ size and 18″ size. The 12″ is easier to handle but the 18″ are nice for piping boarders or frosting cupcakes. You can also fill them with melted chocolate to drizzle or make drip cakes. Word to the wise-if you’re a cake decorator, buy the heavier plastic piping bags, NOT the thinner plastic ones (that are cheaper so you’ll be tempted) are meant for cookie decorators and you will blow them out and be frustrated. You can tell because the thinner ones are textured. Don’t do it. You can also get reusable piping bags which are more of an investment up front but can use them over and over.
- Set of Round and Square Cake Pans-I have a set of 4″, 6″, 8″, and 10″ round cake pans (meaning 2 of each) but I only have 1 square pan because I prefer to make round cakes. I also have a heart pan and a football pan and myriad other pans collecting dust…don’t be like me. Keep your pan situation minimal. You’ll find what you like and you can make a lot of cakes without specialized pans.
5 “Nice to Have” Cake Decorating Tools:
- X-acto Knife–this one is really handy if you work with fondant at all. X-acto knives are super sharp and make it much easier to cut tiny pieces. Plus, in the scheme of things, they’re pretty cheap.
- Cake Boards-I almost put this one in the essentials category but you really don’t NEED to have a cake board, you can decorate directly onto a plate but they’re nice to have especially if you’re transporting your cake. You can buy cake drums which are thicker cake boards for displaying your cake, or you can be like me and tape two or three cake boards together yourself and cover it in foil or cake paper.
- Gel Food Coloring Set-I tend to use the same few colors over and over again so I purchase those in a larger size but a set of food coloring with a rainbow of colors is super nice to have.
- Couplers and Multiples of your Favorite Piping Tips-a coupler makes it so you can use multiple tips with the same bag of frosting and makes your life so much easier. I also tend to use the same piping tips for a lot of my decorating so having multiple of the same tip makes things easier (for example: when decorating cookies, I pretty much only use an round tip, so having multiple round tips makes it so I don’t have to wash them every time I need to change colors).
- Bench Scraper-this has become my go-to tool for frosting the sides of my cake. I prefer it to a large offset spatula.
3 Tools that are a Waste of Money (IMO)
- Icing Gun-when searching for cake decorating tools on Amazon, this popped up a bunch. Just no. Its bulky, it doesn’t hold much frosting, and require it’s own specific, limited set of tips. A piping bag is much much easier once you get the hang of it.
- Cake Leveler-also unnecessary. All you need is a good long serrated knife, your eyeballs, and some practice. If the cake isn’t perfectly level, you can even things out with your frosting.
- Flower Formers-I have several of these collecting dust in my basement. When I first leaned to decorate, I took Wilton classes (which were great, btw, if you’re looking for a beginner class). But they were all about flowers and flower formers. Flower formers aren’t really necessary, if you want to shape your flowers, simply lay them in a little cup or bowl to dry.
The long and the short of it is, you don’t need a ton of things to get started baking and decorating your own cakes and the people in your life will love it no matter what you do.
Happy Baking!
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