Ok, so I just love how that sounded all fancy.. Truth is, you don’t need fancy shmancy tools for basic decorating, you can pretty much improvise with tools you already have around your kitchen.

Its when you get into the more elaborate decorating techniques that you really need to pull out the big guns.

Truth be told, I’ve been decorating at some level of skill ever since I was a little kid. Now.. I said “some” level, not necessarily a very high level.

When I was younger, my mom decorated cakes, and she did a kickass job of it. She was so creative, I think it was impossible for me not to come away with some love for decorating desserts. As I got older, I continued, but it wasnt until I took a job as a professional cake decorator, that I learned what tools you really need, and I was able to compare my techniques to other decorators.

If you’re confident in your decorating skill, just skim through this. There are no photos, just explainations. I figured it would be a good idea to write down a few tidbits that could help out someone who waneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.coms just starting out.

Tip 1- If you plan on doing large amounts of decorating, just go ahead and buy the tools. A coupler set costs around $1 (us) and decorating tips are usually half that price, but at the most $1.50 (us) depending on size. I’ll go ahead and give my recommendation for Wilton decorating tools. Why? Because they pretty much corner the market. Their sizes are pretty universal, so you shouldnt have too hard of a time converting their tips to other brand couplers or vice versa.

NEVER buy the small decorating bags. They realistically only hold about a handful of icing in them, and there really isnt any point in that. Start out with medium. Dont go all the way to the jumbotron size unless you’re piping whipped cream or marshmallow, or base icing cupcakes.

Canvas bags are great, because you’re not adding more waste to landfills, but you have to clean them well after each use. I have a jumbo canvas bag and a few medium canvas bags. When I’m on a decorating kick, I can go through quite a few disposable bags, so this is the little thing I can do for the environment.

also, canvas bags dont split like plastic bags do if you’re not sure about the correct amount of pressure to apply while decorating.

Tip 2- Have plenty of decorating spatulas handy. You can use them for everything. Smoothing out the icing, spreading the icing, mixing the icing.. I dont bother with the offset spatulas. They’re wobbly and weak. In the 4 years I’ve professionally decorated, I’ve never once used one, even when they were available.

Tip 3- Practice makes perfect. Dont expect yourself to be able to pipe beautiful scrollwork or make roses right off the bat. It took me 6 months working 8 hour days devoting an hour a day to learning how to make a rose, to make a rose. You can learn it quicker, Just dont let yourself get down if you dont get it at first.

If you’re going to go this route, here is my list of necessary tools-

2- #2 Tips
#10 Tip
#14 Rose Tip
#22 or #23 border tip
set of 4 couplers
2 small decorating spatulas (flat, not offset)
one flat icing spatula (large size)
bowls for mixing icing colours
set of wilton basic icing colours
meringue powder (for royal icing)
6 medium sized canvas decorating bags
1 jumbo sized canvas decorating bag
1 jumbo coupler
1 jumbo border tip

Ok, now that the three tips are out of the way.. I’m going to start all over by saying that you CAN do all of this without any of those tools. I’d like to call my decorating hack kit. hehe..

box of heavy duty quart sized or sandwich sized ziploc (sealed) bags
sharp kitchen shears
single point round toothpicks
Butter knife with rounded end and NO serrations
empty and clean yogurt tubs with lids
set of 4 liquid colours (available ANYWHERE)

Unfortunately there is no replacement for the jumbo bag and coupler, but you probably wont need that.

What I’ve got listed above is all you need to decorate a simple cookie or a simple cake. I have all the tools I could need for decorating the fancy way, but I find myself going with the ziploc bag method more often than not when doing quick jobs or on days I just dont feel like doing the dishes.

Once you’ve mixed your icing, place a heaping spoonful into the ziploc bag. Squeeze all of the air out of it. add a small amount of the colouring seal the bag and smush it around until the colour is mixed in. Now squeeze all the icing down to one corner and snip the corner off. REMEMBER to snip only the tiniest bit off. You can always snip more, but you cant put it back.

now you can pipe outlines and details. If you’re wanting to fill in large spaces, cut a larger hole, pipe a big thick line and use the butter knife to spread the icing around.

If you’re working with royal icing or another type of thin icing, the toothpicks can be very useful in filling small corners or adding detail. Same with thicker icings or sugar pastes.

The yogurt tubs are great for storing extra icing. I would not recommend storing the icing in the bag, not only is it messy, but exposure to light with either fade or darken your original icing colour. So that pink may end up red, the green might end up teal. Just store them in opaque containers in the fridge. Its much easier to work with cold icing, also.

So there you have it. The basics tools one could need to decorate. There is plenty more I could say, but I’ll save that for a day I feel like making a rose and taking photos of the how-to process.

-A.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 8:02 pm and is filed under March 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.