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The Ultimate Guide To Cake Decorating Tools
After baking your cake, it's time to decorate! You may have thought about the wonderful, colourful and most often delicious cake toppings that are available to decorate your cake. You may have even considered a multitude of cake decorating ideas to put into practice. Now's the time to turn your attention to actually creating your cake creations. How can you use icing, toppings and moulds to create something special? This is where cake decorating tools step in. These tools for cake decorating are specifically designed to help make your life in the kitchen easier. Allow us to take you through the types of tools you'll need for maximum cake decorating creativity.
Quick Links
- Shaping And Cutting Cake To Construct Your Design
- Importance Of Sturdy Turntables And Cake Boards
- Piping Bags For Intricate Icing
- Artistic Decorations With Fondant Tools
- Tools For Decorating That Ease Icing Application
- Precise Decorations With Brushes and Stencils
- Picture Perfect Cake Presentation
Shaping And Cutting Cake To Construct Your Design
Often when baking cakes, we stick to the shape of the pan or tin used in its baking. However, there's really no limit to the way you choose to shape a basic cake to prepare it for use with your cake-decorating tools. Knives, trimmers and other baking tools give you the freedom to create whatever design you desire!
Cake Leveller
Remove rough or uneven cake tops by using a cake leveller to essentially even out your cake. This tool helps to ensure you have a lovely even surface as the 'canvas' for your cake decorations. It also allows you to create easily stackable designs, perfect for creating layered cakes for birthdays and weddings. All you have to do is adjust the leveller to the height you require and then simply slice off the top of the cake.
Edge Corner Smoother
Trim edges and create corners, curves and sides with an edge corner smoother, which also allows you to achieve the same shape each time.
Cupcake Corer
A cupcake corer helps you easily remove the centre from a cupcake so you can fill it with delicious jam, chocolate spread or icing. You can either choose to leave it exposed or cover the top with icing so someone gets a tasty surprise when they bite into the middle. Serrated cupcake corers make this process really simple because they slide through the cake smoothly.
Rolling Pin
Not only does a rolling pin serve you well when baking, rolling out dough and preparing ingredients, it is also particularly great for preparing your fondant and other decorations. Use a rolling pin guide to make sure your icing is always a consistent height. Simply adjust the ruled slide to your chosen measurement and roll away.
Importance Of Sturdy Turntables And Cake Boards
Before decorating your cake, you first want to ensure it is placed on a stable base that allows you to decorate freely without worrying about a wobbling cake ruining your designs, or worse, knocking your baked creation off your bench.
Icing Table
When covering your cake with icing, put the cake on a cake turntable first. You can then turn the table as you ice for even coverage and a perfectly smooth finish. This helps you spread the icing smoothly and evenly across the cake for a clean, neat finish.
Tilting Turntable
A tilting turntable works in a similar way to an icing turntable, however you can adjust the angle of the plate to make it more comfortable for you to use and enabling you to ice in harder-to-reach sections of your cake.
Cake Boards
Often used for the final presentation of the cake, a sturdy cake board can also provide an incredibly helpful base that assists in ensuring your cake is kept in place while decorating. It offers a flat surface to decorate your cakes, great for when you're creating symmetrical and even cake decorations.
How To Ice A Cake: Icing Tools To Create Your Designs
No matter what your cake decorating idea, you'll be sure to find the perfect tools to help achieve your vision. From piping bags for icing to fondant tools for creating edible decorations, there are a number of cake decorating tools that will help you bring your decorative ideas to life.
Piping Bags For Intricate Iced Designs
A piping bag allows you to pipe shapes, words and borders on cakes and cookies, as well as professionally ice the top of cupcakes. Filling with the icing of your choice, these tools are easy to use, simply squeeze your piping bag gently to allow the icing to seep through in the shape of your chosen piping tip.
Piping Tips Or Nozzles
There are a number of piping nozzles you can pair with your piping bag to produce intricate and even elaborate results, depending on how ambitious you are. While the stock-standard tip is round for producing simple lines in different sizes, you can also choose from a variety of shaped tips, including:
- Star tips for piping circular patterns with ruffled edges - great for drawing flowers, piping icing on cupcakes or decorative edges on your cakes
- Flower tips shaped in specific ways for adding floral artwork to your baked creations
- Border tips for producing long, consistent edges - look for ones in several shapes so you can pipe traditional shell borders, smooth scallops, stars or classic roses around the border of your cake
- Leaf tips for making wavy pleats that look just like folded and draped ribbons
- Writing tips with small, round openings designed for piping words - because they're simple, you can also use them to pipe small, fine details like buttons and eyes
- Ruffle tips for producing defined, wavy lines.
A tip on piping tips: A tip with a couple of openings lets you pipe with two different piping bags at the same time to create a multi-coloured effect. If you have a screw on your piping bag, pick up some coupler rings, which let you screw the bag to the tip. Or, simply use tubes of coloured piping gel as a simple, no-fuss way to add a splash of colour.
Artistic Decorations With Fondant Tools
Fondant tools hold a place of significance among your repertoire of cake decorating tools. They can be used to both create the thickness of your fondant and model it to your preference. There are a number of tools that will help you work with your fondant:
Tools | |
Creates the perfect surface for rolling your fondant and gum paste. These mats come with measurements marked on them so you can roll the correct size for your cake without having to guess, and you can also cut shapes that are all exactly the same size. They're usually non-stick so you can easily remove the icing without losing its shape. These mats are also durable enough to withstand your cutting, just like cutting boards. | |
Available in a variety of shapes, these tools allow you to easily cut out designs from your fondant. They allow for precision in creating a selection of fondant shapes, providing a cohesive design and are engineered to deliver precise cutting with ease. | |
Allow you to manipulate and shape fondant into your chosen design. These fondant tools help you with drawing fine details or making impressions. Some modelling sticks feature a pointed end for detailing, and a rounded end for creating shapes or draping the fondant to achieve a rounded effect. |
Tools For Decorating That Ease Icing Application
Icing an entire cake may prove to be time-consuming when you want to create a smooth iced surface. Cake smoothers, scrapers and spatulas help to relieve you of this time consuming nature by providing a tool that allows you to easily smooth fondant and icing onto cakes. When icing a cake, always use a spatula, smoother or scraper to apply icing as opposed to smaller utensils as you can easily smother larger amounts of icing and smooth it out in one go. These tools can also be manoeuvred in a way to create alternative iced designs with sharp lines and angles. For example, a spatula, often used in a similar approach one would take when painting, can also double in creating a textured iced finish on your cake.
Shop Cake Smoothers, Scrapers & Spatulas
Precise Decorations With Brushes and Stencils
Additional toppings such as sprinkles and lustre dust may involve other cake decoration tools such as brushes and stencils for their application. When decorating with lustre dust or sprinkles, you may opt for the assistance of a stencil to create an organised chaos approach to decorating. For lustre dust that has been combined with rose spirit, you can use brushes to "paint" your lustre formula in whatever design you desire over your cake. You may also use these brushes to brush over decorative details and apply edible glue to fondant decorations to ensure they stay in place on your cake.
Picture Perfect Cake Presentation
Once your cake is ready, it's time to show your culinary skills! Tools for cake decorating are not limited to those that are used to apply decorations. They also include the tools used to present your cake. Whether you're displaying your baked beauty at a party or sharing it with a few lucky friends, there are a number of tools that you can include in your repertoire that will help you transport your cake from kitchen to table, including:
- Cake lifter: Help you move the cake from the board to your decorative serving plate without the cake breaking or falling to pieces
- Cake rods: Also known as cake dowels, these plastic rods help to prop up your tiered cakes so the bottom tiers don't get squashed. They also provide stability to layered cakes and aid in keeping everything neatly aligned.
- Cake boards: A flat surface to rest your cake upon. Some cake boards even provide the base for decorations. You can find a number of themed cake boards that will complement the overall design of your cake and party.
- Cake stands: Offers an elevated point for you to display your cake and are great when displaying your cake as a stand-alone dessert piece, ideal for weddings or baby showers.
Shop Cake Packaging & Display Stands
Shop Our Tools For Cake Decorating And Bask In A World Of Deliciously Decorated Sweet Treats
Looking to broaden your kitchen tool-kit? Look no further than Spotlight's selection of cake decorating tools to have you equipped to handle any cake decorating idea that may come your way.
You can learn more about cake decorating by reading through our buying guide on cake toppings and by checking out our extensive range of cake decorating ideas to spark your imagination. From artistic cake toppers to useful piping bags, shop our extensive baking and chocolate making range for everything you need to add the perfect finishing touch to your culinary creations.
