The art of baking isn’t complete until you learn how to decorate your baked goods creatively.
Although you could leave your cake as-is right out of the oven, grabbing some cake decoration accessories and tools is an excellent idea to make the end product look more appealing, versatile, and even capable of serving more people.
This article discusses some essential cake decorating tools and accessories you need to have in your kitchen to make cakes with even more love, fun, and pride.
Essential Baking Tools
Before you can decorate a cake, you’ll have to bake it first. Here’s where baking tools come in handy.
While most bakers talk about using the right tools for baking, not all of them are essential for baking. Some can be skipped, especially for beginner bakers.
You can bake a great cake if you have the essential baking tools such as:
- Mixing bowls for holding and mixing ingredients
- Rolling pin for dough leveling
- Baking pans for baking in the oven
- Whisks for whipping up some ingredients
- Cooling racks for holding baked goods while they cool
- Oven mitts to keep you from burning your hands
- Baking sheets for baking specific goods
- Measuring spoons and cups
- Spatulas (spreaders, scrapers, or flippers)
- Food scale
- Hand mixer
- Pastry brush
- Pastry bags and tips
Once you have baked your cake and cooled it down, you can decorate it using cake decorating essentials and accessories.
Cake Decorating Essentials
A cake decorating essential is an item or tool to use in the cake decoration process. Below are some important items you’ll need during the process.
1. Cake Board
A cake board is a piece of cardboard you can use as the base for your cake. It is inedible and available in different sizes and shapes. You can cover it with edible cake decorations. A cake board allows you to transport the cake without having to transfer it to different surfaces and risk dropping or breaking it.
2. Pastry Bags and Tips
Pastry bags and tips are handy tools for decorating cakes by piping ingredients and decorations that require precision.
Pastry bags are also called piping bags. They are usually sizable cone-shaped plastic vessels with a decorative tip at one end.
The tips are available in tip sets of varying designs and sizes for piping various unique cake decoration techniques.
Piping bags are used to decorate cakes through precision by applying royal icing, piping buttercream frosting, and making basket-weave patterns.
They are also ideal for writing numbers and letters on cakes, making dots, and piping flowers.
3. Revolving Cake Stands
A revolving cake stand or decorating turntable resembles a Lazy Susan, but it has a stand and table that elevate above the base.
The cake decorating turntable makes it possible to quickly rotate or spin the cake so you can reach all the angles and sides when icing or decorating it.
4. Cake Levelers
A cake leveler is a hand-held tool or device used to cut through a cake’s layers or the cake’s dome to give a smooth, flat surface for decorating.
5. Flower Nail
A flower nail is a professional cake decorating tool for creating buttercream flowers on a cake. It’s ideal for continuously piping layers of petals for icing flowers that require precision in circular motions.
6. Cake Stencils
Cake stencils are geometric patterned printing plates for cake decoration.
You attach the stencil on the surface of the cake and scrape buttercream frosting or royal icing over the patterns.
The frosting and icing penetrate through the holes or outlets and settle on the cake, forming the stencil pattern.
7. Cake Scraper
A cake scraper is a cake-smoothing tool that creates a fine smooth finish with cake frosting. It is a flat piece of metal you hold against your cake as you rotate it on the turntable.
The scraper usually has a straight side for smooth designs and a patterned side for textured designs.
Cake Decorating Accessories
A cake accessory is something you add to your cake to make it more appealing, versatile, or useful. Most cake decorating accessories are edible and have no adverse effects on the cake or the consumer.
Below are some standard cake decoration accessories you might want to add to your pantry.
1. Cake Topper
A cake topper is a non-edible ornament you place on the top of a cake. It usually rises from the top surface of the cake to a reasonable height where its stability is assured.
Cake toppers are the items you usually see on wedding and birthday cakes. They are included to announce the event being celebrated. For example, a birthday cake may have a worded topping saying, “Happy Birthday.”
2. Edible Glitter
Edible glitters usually feature sugar, maltodextrin, gum arabic (acacia), color additives, and cornstarch.
Edible glitters are added to cakes to make them shinier and more appealing to the eye.
3. Piping Gel and Edible Adhesive Glue
Edible adhesive glue and piping gel are used to decorate cakes. The gel may be transparent or colored. It also acts as an edible glue.
4. Fondant
Cake fondant is a thick paste for covering and decorating cakes. It may be flavored or colored.
Fondant cakes usually appear as celebratory cakes for events like birthdays, graduations, sports wins, and weddings. These events require flashy, highly decorated cakes.
The advantage of fondant is that you can make your own at home and even decorate it with other cake decoration accessories of your choice.
Fondant may be like the handbag-inspired full cake shown above, or simply used as a cake topper. When it is a standalone cake, it is called a fondant bag or handbag cake. This is a cake shaped like a bag and then covered with fondant, with or without decorations.
A fondant bag cake topper is usually a small-sized, bag-inspired part of the cake covered with fondant. It may also be colored, flavored, or decorated.
Conclusion – Essential Cake Decoration Accessories
These cake decoration tools and accessories will come in handy for every cake-making project that requires modifying the cake to make it smoother, evenly shaped, and more beautiful.
Happy baking and cake decorating!
