Essential Cake Decorating Tools You Need From a Professional Kitchen
Does watching the latest cake decorating show give you inspiration to try out your own cake decorating skills? Or maybe the last cake you recreated from your favorite cake channel was harder than it looked because you didn’t have any of the tools?
Set yourself up for cake decorating success with these essential cake decorating tools you need from a professional kitchen. Some of them will make a huge difference to your next cake decorating project!
For Cake Building / Masking
- Cake Turntable
A cake turntable can make it seem like you have extra hands! It’s a game changer for cake-masking and the only way to achieve those perfect, smooth buttercream sides on a cake – together with a bench scraper (see Bench Scraper, below).
Even if you’re not masking the sides with buttercream (maybe you prefer Naked Cakes!), this tool will make working on all parts of your cake easier. With a cake turntable, you can easily spin the cake in any direction so that you can always work directly in front of you.
- Bench Scraper
A bench scraper (together with a cake turntable) is your ticket to achieving perfect, smooth sides on a cake. The straight edge of the bench scraper will do most of the work as you hold the bench scraper in place against the buttercream and simply turn your cake turntable! Stainless steel is preferred.
- Cake Palette Knives / Cake Spatulas
Cake palette knives come in both ‘offset’ and ‘straight’ and in various sizes. They will give you so much more control than a butter knife when working with and spreading out buttercream layers! Stainless steel is preferred.
Our cake decorators like to use a combination of a large palette knife ~7” for most of the cake building and cake masking as well as a small palette knife ~3.5” for touchups. Some use the ‘offset’ kind and others use the ‘straight’ kind – it’s just a matter of preference!
For Buttercream and Frosting Finishes
- Piping Tools
Add some classic finishing buttercream/frosting touches on your cake with piping tips, couplers and piping bags (a zip lock bag can be frustrating to work with) – like borders or flowers. Our cake decorators love to use closed star tips for piping rosettes, stars and shells. Special piping tips can be used to create buttercream flowers, join our Buttercream Flowers class to learn more.
- Cake Combs
Cake combs work like bench scrapers (see Bench Scrapers above). Instead of smooth sides, they create crisp lines and texture on a cake.
For Fondant and Gumpaste Work
- Perspex Rolling Pin
We love our wooden rolling pins for rolling out doughs and cookies but unfortunately, the natural wood grain can leave behind indentations in fondant. Invest in a large Perspex rolling pin to roll out large, smooth sheets of fondant to cover a cake. If you are interested in more detailed fondant work like cake decorations, you might want an additional small Perspex rolling pin for a lighter touch.
- Fondant Smoothers
You’ve already taken the effort to create a smooth frosting/buttercream masking layer as well as rolling out a large sheet of fondant. Help your fondant to look professionally finished with a set of fondant smoothers to smooth your fondant into place.
- Cookie Cutters
What looks like a ‘professionally’ decorated cake sometimes comes down to precise shapes and scale. Cookie cutters in various geometric shapes and sizes will help to create all manner of cake decorations that look flawless (e.g. ovals for the body and googly eyes of a pig).
- Fondant Sculpting Tools
Fondant sculpting tools help you to create precise and realistic touches on decorations that fingers just can’t replicate! Some common uses include sculpting realistic faces and creating texture/movement on clothing or hair.
- Fondant Molds and Texturizing Mats
Fondant molds and texturing mats often have very intricate details and can save you a lot of time for cake decorating. Some of our favorites molds are jewels/gems, fancy cake borders and ribbons.
Eager to get hands-on cake decorating experience and try out some tools? Join our in-person Cake Decorating Classes at Le Dolci Classroom & Studio located in Toronto, Canada. Our classes are suitable for all levels of cake decorators, from total beginners to pro cake decorators who are looking to perfect their technical skills (BONUS: we do the prep, baking and the cleanup so that you can focus on cake decorating!).
Don’t live nearby or caught the cake decorating bug? Join our Online Cakes & Buttercream Course for structured video tutorials where you will learn how to build and mask a cake step-by-step, all about cake science and how to make our favourite cake and buttercream recipes.
We hope that this article gives you some information on how to kit-out your kitchen and set yourself up for success on your cake decorating journey!
xoChef Umie & Team Le Dolci
