You'll love these 10 cake hacks to save money if you're on a budget! Avoid expensive tools, minimize waste, choose techniques wisely, use what you already have at home, and more!
Instead of buying expensive pans for every shape of cake, use whatever you already have. Bake your cakes in pans you already have and then cut them out or attach them, or both! Drawing the shape onto a piece of paper first will help you get exactly the shape you want. Cut out squares or numbers from sheet cakes or hearts from round cakes:
You can also attach different shapes and sizes of cakes to make any shape you want. For example, I made this heart cake by attaching a square cake to a round cake cut in half:
You can make any shape you like with the pans you have and a serrated knife like a bread knife. To attach different shapes together, use buttercream as glue between the shapes. This cake is about to turn into a Pokemon Bulbasaur cake:
When you frost it, you'll cover up any seams or joins between different pieces of cake. And when you serve it, no one will know about the cake surgery you performed on the inside!
Don’t want to spend money on cake boards and cake boxes? Here are more cake hacks to save money and also time! Bake your cake in a pretty dish that’s oven safe and after it cools, decorate it in the dish!
Carry it to your event and slice it in the dish for maximum ease and minimum effort. Then take the dish home with you afterwards to re-use again and again!
One of the best cake hacks to save money is to downsize your cakes. You’ll use less of expensive ingredients like butter and eggs, and you won’t end up with lots of leftover cake! Did you know a 6 inch cake can serve 12-20 people? It’s all about how you serve it.
Large, traditional wedge slices are difficult to cut thinly. You'll end up with huge portions that hardly anyone will finish. Also, the last few slices will be really tricky to slice!
Instead, try the cutting board method. Slice your cake into strips, letting them fall over onto a cutting board.
Cut those pieces in half and in half again, to make perfectly size portions. The edge pieces will have more than the middle pieces so everyone can choose just how much frosting they like.
Sometimes cakes need to be bigger than necessary, for example a tier cake that’s for just 6 people. To achieve the size without waste, use cake dummies or fake cakes for the additional tiers. Frost and decorate them just like you would for a real cake.
No one will know the difference when they see the cake. You can scrape and wash the dummies to re-use again and again, saving money each time!
Yes, you can make your own sprinkles if you have a lot of time and patience. But realistically, simple sprinkles are very affordable to buy.
What’s not as affordable are sprinkles mixes. Good news: you can mix your own! Choose a few different sprinkle packets of different colours and sizes and shapes.
Mix them together and voila! Fancy sprinkle mixes, but homemade!
The cheapest tools and materials won’t necessarily save you money. For example, a cheap plastic cake comb will get dinged after a few uses. Those dings will cause these trails or indents in your frosting:
You’ll have to replace that cheap cake comb almost as soon as you buy it! A more expensive metal cake comb can last years without a single ding. You’ll really get your money’s worth out of that investment.
The same goes for food colouring. Yes, liquid colours form the grocery store or supermarket might be cheaper than gel colours. But gel colours will last you years and years - I haven’t replaced any since I got this set in 2020! And the storage case for gel bottles has been one of my best purchases ever!
Gel colours are really concentrated so you don’t need much to tint buttercream. I made this same colour using half a bottle of liquid colour and just a drop of gel colour:
So, before choosing the cheapest tools and materials, think about how often you'll use them and how long they'll last.
For dark colours like black and red you need a lot of gel to make a bold colour. Gels are expensive so instead, use these cake hacks to save money. First, tint buttercream several shades lighter than you want. For example, make grey instead of black and coral instead of red.
Secondly, microwave the bowl for 5 seconds and the heat will darken the buttercream. Finally, cover the bowl and put it into the freezer for 5 minutes. This will bring the melted buttercream back to room temperature. The cold will darken it, too!
Stir it and optionally, cover it again and leave it to rest for an hour or two. You’ll notice dark grey turn to black and coral turn into a deep, bold red. Look at the difference in the colour between a few hours ago, and now!
For character cakes you could buy fondant in every colour and roll out each shape individually. Making figures this way is time consuming and expensive. But the person you’re making the cake for probably has toy figures of that character. Clean the figures and use them on the cake for free! And honestly, the toy topper will probably have the best resemblance to the character anyway!
There are endless tools you can buy for cake decorating. But there are also endless substitutes that you already have in your drawers and cabinets. Instead of textured cake combs, use a spoon or a fork or a spatula to create gorgeous textured frosting.
Instead of piping bags and tips for writing or drawing dots or lines, use a sandwich bag like a ziploc bag. Spoon your buttercream in and push it down to one of the bottom corners. Cut a small piece of the corner off and you have a homemade piping bag with a round piping tip!
Check out my tutorials on 5 Ways to Decorate a Cake without Tools and 12 Secret Cake Decorating Tools You Already Have for all sorts of alternatives to avoid buying expensive tools!
When you’re learning how to make cakes, there are so many techniques and tools to try out. Trial and error is an expensive process! Instead, learn all of the techniques you like in concise, informative, clear videos that show you how to use minimal tools to create stunning cakes. As well as cake hacks to save money, you'll learn shortcuts and all the tips and tricks to decorate cakes like a pro! Find all of this on my cake school. I’m offering a FREE 7 day trial of my All You Can Cake membership, which includes EVERYTHING on my cake school, so you can try it out, risk free! See you there!
Now tell me in the comments which tip will save YOU money when you’re making cakes!
You can also watch a video of this tutorial on 10 cake hacks to save money:
