Birthday Cake Tools and Tips

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Do you want to save money on your kid’s next birthday cake and at the same time personalize it more than a box store can?  If you ask your child, chances are they would rather have a cake baked at home and built with love.   It isn’t as hard as you may think.  And your child will enjoy watching the process and being involved, where possible.

Truth is,  I have never bought a birthday cake for any of my five kids’ birthdays.  That’s a total of  71 cakes over the last 18 ½ years.  It sound like too much work, but for the first two years, I only made one cake a year for my only daughter (at the time).  These were my practice years when I learned some tried and true tips.

I’m going to pass some of these tools and practices on to you, now.

My list of tools are as follows:

• Piping bags Wilton has these in reusable or in disposable versions.  They vary from 8 to 18 inches, depending upon your need (frosting amounts).  In a pinch I have used a zip-lock plastic bag.
• Rubber spatulas We call these our “favorite kitchen utensil” at our house.  These are versatile tools that help get the last bit of cake or frosting out of the bowl.
• Cake frosting spatulas Both a large-sized and a small-sized metal spatula version are important for smoothing the frosting on the cake.  The smaller one works as a tool to spread a thin layer (this is called a crumb coating) of frosting on tricky spots that might otherwise cause the cake to crumble. Once you have conquered the tricky spot, you can move to the larger size spatula to finish with a thicker (or normal amount of) frosting layer.
• Tips and Couplers These are the tips and coupling pieces that hold them in place that attach to the piping bags. These tips help you create textures, patterns, shapes and overall decorations on the cake.  You can switch them out to apply different effects on the cake.  Again, Wilton is a great source.
• Food Coloring These come in paste, powder and gel forms.  These are not liquid food colors.  They are more concentrated and keep the icing from thinning. Plus they allow for brighter colors.  Wilton has these, as well.
• Turntable Since we only have two hands and one head that doesn’t maneuver like a transformer, turntables make icing the cake a snap.  You can do without it, but a turntable (or lazy susan) is worth the few dollars and can save your back, your hands and your head a lot of ache.

Some baking/mixing tips:

Ingredients mix better at room temperature.

A nice electric hand mixer will make your batter and frostings smoother than hand mixing.

Cakes must be completely cooled before frosting.  Cool on a rack.

If your cake bakes into a dome on top.  Once it is cooled, you can take a serrated knife and trim it flat on top.

I even like to freeze my cake if it involves cutting it into a shape for a character cake.

Use a large piece of cardboard, covered with aluminum foil for a base to a rectangular cake.

Choose the best icing for your particular cake.  Do you need it white, do you want the best tasting frosting, etc…

To keep your cake base tidy, line the edges of your cake with waxed paper before decorating.  Pull out the waxed paper after you are through decorating and you will have no frosting mess around the cake’s foil edges.