When you’re a beginning cake decorator, you’re probably going to be confused by all of the things that people say you “have to have” to decorate cakes. Most of those things are totally unnecessary, but there are some basics that will make your life a lot easier and save you time.
These are the 5 essential favorite tools that I used all the time when I made custom wedding cakes, and wouldn’t have wanted to give up, in no particular order. (I’m not including things like spatulas and measuring cups, those are too obvious.)
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The Agbay cake leveler.
Once you use an Agbay cake leveler you’ll wonder why it took you so long to buy one.
This is an adjustable cake leveler that’s sturdy and isn’t a joke. You have to be careful with it because it’s REALLY sharp (ask me how I know.)
The blades are rigid, serrated steel knives, and they won’t move while you’re in the middle of leveling the cake layer. That’s the problem with levelers that have a thin wire for the cutting part, they tend to bend as you’re using them and they drag the cake instead of cutting it.
The Agbay cuts through any cake you can throw at it with no effort, and once you try it you’ll throw out all the weak and wiggly levelers you’ve bought before it.
You can also adjust the height to cut thin slices off of each layer if you want to torte the layers and have them look even when the cake is cut.
A good turntable.
A good turntable can make icing a cake smooth 100% easier. it doesn’t have to be expensive, it just has to turn smoothly.
I use a wooden lazy susan (affiliate link) and it works great even for really heavy cakes.
If you do really large cakes you might want to get a larger one, but in my experience you can get away with a good-quality wooden one that’s about 12″ across even for tiers that are 16″ across.
As long as it turns smoothly, it will work.
You don’t need to stick with things that are specifically for cakes…A lot of the things that I used to decorate cakes weren’t meant to be used for cakes!
An extra oven rack.
I hear a lot of shrieking from people worried that they can’t bake more than one cake layer at a time because the oven won’t heat it properly.
I’m here to tell you that if you know how your oven heats, you can bake off an entire three-tiered cake at the same time.
I bought an extra rack for my oven and it cut my baking time down substantially.
You just have to know when to rotate pans, where the hot spots in your oven are, etc.
You can usually get extra racks through the manufacturer’s website, or you can have one ordered for you at a local appliance store.
For an article about testing for an oven hot spot, click here.
A five-petal rose cutter.
Five petal rose cutters (affiliate link) are good for quick roses and other petally-type flowers. Get a few sizes for variety.
You can stack them to make tropical flowers, roll them around a center to make roses, or cup them to make a tulip-type flower.
A silicone pearl mold.
I use a silicone pearl mold (affiliate link) all the time and wouldn’t want to go without it. It makes sizing fondant pearls super-easy.
Even though I re-roll them and don’t use them straight out of the mold, it cuts down on my pearl-making time.
You can read more about how I use these to make pearls, and get a pearl chart for different tier sizes, here: How To Make Fondant Pearls
