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10 Must Have Cake Decorating Tools
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Sep 6, 2024
There are a LOT of cake decorating tools available but here are my 10 absolute must haves, which you’ll get the most out of because you can use each one for several different decorating techniques. For my online cake decorating school click here: https://www.britishgirlbakes.com/online-courses To read a written version of this tutorial (with photos!) click here: https://www.britishgirlbakes.com/10-must-have-cake-decorating-tools/
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There are a lot of cake decorating tools available but here are my 10 absolute must-haves
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which you'll get the most out of because you can use each one for several different decorating
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techniques. In this video I'll use lots of different cakes to show you different ways to use each
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tool. Starting with the basics, an offset spatula or palette knife is a quick and easy way to
0:21
spread frosting onto a cake before you smooth it and it's also the quickest way to tidy up the
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top edge of a cake to get nice sharp edges by pushing sideways from the outside of the cake towards the middle and swiping away to leave neat edges
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behind. You can use it to decorate a cake too, creating texture in the frosting by pressing
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the tip into the frosting and spinning the cake to create grooves around the sides, or by swishing
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it upwards to create vertical texture, going from bottom to top, or applying colors to the
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cake in a painted style, using a small amount of colored frosting on the tip of the offset spatchelor
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and then swiping upwards. An Offset Spatchler is the best tool to use to spread frosting over a stencil
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and you can also use it to scrape off the excess and to smooth the frosting before you peel the
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stencil off. If you're a fan of drip cakes, an Offset Spatchler can be used to create a spiral
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in the drip on the top of the cake to add some interest up there. A cake scraper is another
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basic tool that's an absolute essential if you want to get smooth frosting on your cakes
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and they come in different materials like plastic, metal and acrylic, and I have another video
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demonstrating the pros and cons of each, which you can watch by clicking up at the top of the screen
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or the link is in the description below this video too As you seen with the cake so far having a turntable is another must tool for smoothing the frosting on a cake and it also makes almost all decorating techniques much much quicker
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You can buy plastic turntables but I really encourage you to choose a metal one
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because the spin is much smoother, which means the frosting on your cake will also be much smoother
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Piping bags allow you to apply frosting quickly to a cake, whether that's by piping the filling onto each cake layer
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or piping frosting around the sides of the cake before you smooth it
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This is especially useful for mini cakes, which are very lightweight and wobbly, so you'll find
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it much easier to pipe the frosting onto the cake, rather than spreading it on with an offset spatula
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You can also use piping bags to create stripes on a cake without needing a striped cake comb
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Adding piping tips to piping bags will give you a whole new range of possibilities for
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cake decorating. A 1M tip pipes beautiful swells onto the top of a cake
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and you can also buy star-shaped tips where the prongs are shorter and much more open
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with a larger hole in the middle of the tip. And these are called open star tips. These work
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really well for wave or shell borders around the top and bottom of cakes, and also for adding
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texture on smooth frosting. You can see that open star tips can be large, like a 4b, or very small
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like an 8b or a number 199, and the smaller ones are perfect for mini cakes, like the rope border on this cake
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A petal tip, like a number 125, pipes ruffles of frosting, which you can layer around a cake
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and with the same tip, you can loop ribbons of frosting, like this
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And I show you how to use a petal tip with another must tool in a moment for another beautiful cake decoration Small round tips can be used to pipe letters if you want to write something on a cake or to pipe tiny dots to create shapes called pointillism which is an easy way to create
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shapes and patterns and designs on a cake without needing to buy a specific stencil or mold for each
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cake. Texted cake combs are one of my favorite cake decorating tools because in just a few seconds
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you can make a plain cake look stunning with a huge variety of textured patterns. Pleats, zigzags
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scallops, this flower pot texture, and even stripes, which are the most precise and neat if
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you use a striped cake comb and chill the first colour of frosting before spreading or piping
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the next colour into the grooves. And then as you scrape and scrape and scrape off all the
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excess frosting, the stripes will get neater and neater. Cookie cutters are maybe a surprising
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tool for cake decorating, but they're really useful for a lot of techniques. You can make
4:11
your own stencils with them, tracing around them onto parchment paper and then cutting
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out the shape you've drawn, and when you spread frosting over the shape onto a cake, you'll
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leave a perfect design on the frosting. There are a great guide for piping too, outlining
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the design before you pipe it onto a cake. Cookie cutters can even be used to make cake
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toppers, with melted chocolate or candy, and when it sets and you push it through the cookie
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cutter, you'll have a neat shape to place on top of your cake. Of course, you can also use cookie
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cutters to make cookies, pressing a paper straw or a wooden skewer into them before baking
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and then you can decorate them and use them as toppers on a cake. If you want to melt
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chocolate to make chocolate decorations like these cute little dinosaurs, a microwave-safe bowl is a
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must Boles that aren microwave get incredibly hot which will burn the chocolate and cause it to seize while you heating it You can also use microwave bowls to melt
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candy evenly without burning it, and then drizzle it to make fun shapes for cake toppers
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If the bowl is not microwave-safe and gets too hot, the colour of the candy would turn brown
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This is called a flower nail, and combined with a piping tip and piping bag and a little
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square of parchment paper, you can use a flower nail to create all sorts of shapes
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With a petal tip, you can pipe, obviously, petals to make flowers to attach onto a cake
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You can use the same tip to pipe these pinwheels, spinning the nail between your thumb and
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finger and holding the wide end of the tip pressed down towards the middle of the nail
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To attach them to a cake, freeze them for a few minutes to set the buttercream and then use
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a dot of fresh buttercream as glue to stick them onto the side of a cake
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A flower nail isn't just for flowers though. Use a round tip to pipe a pumpkin, for example
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Finally, when you finish your cake, you'll want to show it off to your friends and family
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and customers, or at least show them a photo. A cake stand is an easy way to make a cake look instantly more professional and impressive
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If you're going to buy just one, choose a white one, which will go well with any color scheme
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and as far as size, I like stands that are two to four inches wider than the cake
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my online course on cake photography like a pro and lots of other classes and courses on
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cake decorating including mini cake decorating check out my online cake school and the link is in the
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top of the screen and in the video description or go to british girlbakes.com thank you for watching
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