This is a quick guide to 10 essential tools that I use for decorating and covering large cakes.
If you invest in the correct tools, you’ll achieve improved results and you’ll save yourself a significant amount of time decorating your cake.
This guide refers to the covering of single tier cakes using frosting or butter cream, and for cakes covered in sugar paste, marzipan or chocolate plastique.
1/ Cake Turntable – a non-stick turntable is useful for turning the cake around with ease, and helps to decorate the cake with frosting evenly.
2/ Cake board – for placing your cake on. The cake board is usually 2-3 inches larger than the cake.
3/ Large silicone rolling pin – a large non-stick rolling pin will ensure you can focus on rolling your sugar paste or marzipan to the correct measurement. Most importantly, it will ensure your paste doesn’t stick to the rolling pin.
4/ Non-stick board – a large non-stick board is one tool I couldn’t live without. The rolling of sugar paste usually requires the dusting of icing sugar on a kitchen work surface to stop the paste from sticking. A non-stick board eliminates the use of icing sugar, hence this keeps the sugar paste from drying out and saves cleaning time.
Extra tip: Those surfaces made with marble also tend to cool the paste, whereas a non-stick board retains the temperature of the paste.
5/ Cake sticks – these are two plastic sticks that are used to ensure all of your rolled paste is 5mm thick (which is the ideal thickness for sugar paste covering).
Start to roll your paste and then use these sticks as a guide by placing a stick either side of the rolled paste. With your rolling pin, roll the paste with both ends of the rolling pin touching each of the sticks.
If the sugar paste is level in height with the sticks, then you know you have the correct thickness of paste.
6/ Icing Smoothers – plastic icing smoothers are crucial for obtaining a smooth and flawless finish for your cake coverings. Invest in two straight edged smoothers (for the sides of a cake) and a rounded smoother for smoothing the top of the cake.
7/ Large palette knife – use to cover and level your cake with butter cream.
8/ Large cake knife – you can purchase a specialist cake knife for splitting your cakes or you can use a large serrated knife.
9/ Small spirit level – useful for checking if your cake is levelled correctly. These can be purchased from a hardware store.
10/Kitchen roll – use for wiping clean your palette knife to avoid crumbs, and to wipe the cake clean of any excess butter cream (once covered).
Happy Baking!
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Tags: cake decorating tools, cakes, decorating cakes, sugar paste
