Coco Cake Land's Lyndsay Sung gives us the inside scoop on her favorite tools for making pretty and cute cakes.
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August 6, 2018: Lyndsay Sung's adorable book, Coco Cake Land, is packed with top-notch tips and tricks to help you make beautiful cakes. Read along to get her insight and suggestions for the best tools to measure, shape and decorate your cakes.
Turntables make your life so much easier when frosting and piping a cake. This tool is worth the investment.
I have cake pans in all the sizes, but my go-to size is a round 8- by 2-inch pan. Most of the cake recipes in this book call for that size.
I use clear, disposable piping bags, but I reuse them: simply wash with hot water and dish soap.
Fondant is a thick, sugary, doughlike icing that can be rolled and shaped. Since we aren’t covering entire cakes with fondant and simply using it for facial features and other accents, this isn’t of huge concern. Fondant can be found readily online in a myriad of colors in small, consumer-grade containers. I use the brand Satin Ice, which is vegan, and it works well for me.
I have a bunch of offset spatulas in varying sizes. They are terrific for leveling cake batter in the pan before putting it into the oven and for spreading frosting.
To attach fondant decorations, I use wooden food-safe skewers. They allow me to place the decorations, like a unicorn’s horn or a bunny’s ears, exactly where I want them, and they help give great dimension to a cake.
I use gel food coloring in varying shades for vibrant buttercream. The more color, the better!
An electric stand mixer is my best friend in the kitchen. It makes creating batters and icings a piece of cake. The less time I spend mixing ingredients together, the more time I have to decorate the cakes.
Fondant can be tricky to work with, but with a set of plastic non-stick tools, it is much easier to shape and cut decorations for cakes.
I like to use cake stands to add a little more color to my cake photographs. Investing in one nice cake stand is a great way to make your masterpieces even more special.
Exactitude is pretty crucial in recreating baking recipes. Invest in a solid set of cups and spoons, and they will last a lifetime. I use a stainless steel set, and they’re more than a decade old now!
I often use a set of circle cookie cutters for a nice, cleanly finished edge when cutting out fondant facial features, like animal cheeks.
I use rubber spatulas in various sizes. They are indispensable for scraping mixing bowls and transporting buttercream.
Wilton and Ateco are popular brand choices that can be found both online and more readily in stores, but please note that piping tip numbers are not standard and each brand has their own system. If you want all the tips, start with a set like this one.
Here are my top three:
Wilton 1M is a classic open star tip, great for a perfect cupcake swirl, drop stars, and borders.
This tip is my ultimate favorite for piping fur.
This is a French open star tip, which I use for rosettes, drop stars, and shell borders.
Get the recipe for Lyndsay's Rainbow Unicorn Cake now!
