10 Utensils Every Baker Needs!

I don’t know about all of you, but when I first started baking I bought every utensil, cake tin, gadget I saw. You name it, I’ve probably had it at one point. As time goes by and you bake more and more, you realise most of those ‘must-have’ things are a complete waste of money. Since getting rid of them, I now actually have free space in my baking cupboard, no more avalanche every time I open the door!

Here are 10 things I really do find essential for any baker, amateur to professional, and a few others that are essential to me.

1. Oven thermometer- no matter how new your oven is, the temperature could still be off even by a few degrees and those few degrees could be the difference between delicious and burned.

2. Timer- Most ovens come with a timer now but if yours doesn’t, you really should invest in one. They are great for when your items need  a few more minutes, especially if you’re a wee bit forgetful like me.

3. Good quality oven gloves/mitts- this seems like an obvious one but a lot of people end up using a folded towel instead, which means burned fingers. Even if you don’t bake regularly, it’s still something you should have in your kitchen. You can buy silicone gloves now too, I’ve not tried them yet but I’ve heard great reviews.

4. Cooling racks- Everything that is baked in the oven has to be cooled properly afterwards, or it will continue to bake in it’s tin. The cooling rack has to allow air to completely surround the tin. If you bake a lot, it’s a good idea to have a few of these.

5. Good quality scales- these really are essential to everything you bake. If your ingredients are even a few grams out, it could mess up the entire recipe. In my opinion, digital scales are the best as they give you the exact amount, and they take up less room!

6. Measuring spoons- thesea re just as essential as scales, and are better for smaller amounts.

7. Mixing bowls- it’s handy to have multiple mixing bowls, especially different sizes. That way you can have everything weighed out before you actually start baking.

8. Sieve- most people will already have a sieve in their kitchen but a lot of people don’t bother using it because they think it doesn’t make a difference, or it makes too much mess. Sieving your dry ingredients before baking is crucial to most recipes as it adds aeration to the product.

9. Good quality baking pans/tins/sheets- this is another obvious one but one of the most important. No matter how perfect your recipe/oven/method is, if your baking equipment is too thin/too old/damaged, it will affect your product.

10. Bowl scraper- this is such a simple, cheap tool but it is great. It can be used to scrape down the mixture in your bowl to make sure it’s all mixed together properly. It can also be used to scrape your mixture into your baking pan. A spatula can also be used, but I prefer a scraper because you have more control over it.

Some extra things that aren’t essential to everyone, but can be handy:

1. Stand mixer- I love my stand mixer. If you bake a lot at home it’s the perfect gadget! Stick your recipe in to mix while getting pans ready/cleaning up etc. If you bake a lot, I definitely recommend investing in a good mixer.

2. Candy thermometer- If you fancy trying your hand at making caramel/candy/marshmallows or basically anything that requires cooking sugar, a candy thermometer is a very handy tool to have. It gives you the exact temperature of the sugar and tells you the different boiling points for jam, caramel etc.

3. Palette knife- this is a handy tool for coating cakes with icing, but it can also be used to remove cookie from sheets and removing cakes/loaves from pans. Small, angled palette knives are also great for using with cupcake icing or sugar decorations.

4. Spring action ice cream scoop- this might seem a strange one, but if you bake cupcakes or cookies a lot, it’s a great wee tool to have. It ensures that each cake/cookie is the same size and it’s a quicker method than using a spoon or piping bag.

If you have any other tools you think are essential, let us know!

Halloween Cupcakes

If you’ve been in a supermarket recently, you might have noticed Halloween stuff everywhere! Yep, it’s that time of year again. Here at Cake-Cetera, we’ve been thinking up great ideas for decorating Halloween cupcakes. We’ve included all the steps for each design, so they’re simple and easy to do. Enjoy everyone, and have a great Halloween!

Pumpkin Cupcakes

These adorable little cupcakes are so easy to make, they’re perfect for kids to help out. Once your cupcakes are baked, simply colour your buttercream orange and spread it onto the cupcakes.

If you want to add in the grooves of the pumpkin, leave the buttercream to harden a little and use the back of a knife to make the indents. To finish them off, simply add a chocolate stick to the top.

If you want to sprinkle the top of yours with orange sugar like the larger ones above, all you have to do is mix together some caster sugar with your orange food colouring. You can put the sugar and colour together in a ziplock bag and press them together with your hands until the sugar is completely covered, or you can add them to a jar, seal the lid tight and shake until the colour has mixed through.

Mummy Cupcakes

These cupcakes are better for people who prefer some sugarpaste (ready to roll icing/fondant) on their cakes and are still so easy to do! They can be made with or without buttercream, depending on your preference.

Once you’ve baked your cupcakes, apply a thin layer of buttercream (jam or a simple sugar syrup can also be used). You can then go ahead and roll out your sugarpaste until it’s really thin (a few millimetres is all you need). You then cut out strips of the sugarpaste and layer them over the cupcake, easy peasy! To finish, all you have to do is pipe on a little coloured buttercream for the eyes and you’re done!

Ghost Cupcakes

These ghost cupcakes are a favourite with many people every year, and no wonder why, they’re so cute! There are a few different ways you can do them, it’s all just down to personal taste.

Once your cupcakes are baked, pipe a simple layer of buttercream on top. This is when the different methods come in. Here are the two most popular:

1. You can take your buttercream and pipe a small mound in the middle of the cupcake. Whilst leaving this to firm up, you can roll out your sugarpaste until it’s quite thin. Then, using a cutter the same width as your cupcake, cut out a circle of your sugarpaste and drape it over the buttercream in the centre. This ghost in this method will not be as tall or sturdy as the following two, but it is preferred by most people because it is the simplest method and because of the taste.

2. As opposed to making the ghost structure with buttercream, you can roll a piece of sugarpaste into the same shape and place it in the middle of your cupcakes. You then roll out the rest of your sugarpaste and cut it into a circle and drape it over, as above. This method gives you a ghost that is sturdier and can stand taller than the buttercream version. To finish, simply pipe two eyes onto each ghost.

Witch Cupcakes

These cupcakes have to be my favourite! As someone who has grown up watching the Wizard of Oz about a thousand times, I love the reference to the Wicked Witch of the East (although where are the ruby slippers?!). To make the decoration for these cupcakes, all you have to do is make two legs and feet out of sugarpaste and then plonk an upside down cupcake on top! Piece of cake!

Witch’s Hat Cupcakes

Continuing on with the witch theme…

Every Halloween, loads of people make cupcake toppers to look like a witch’s hat. Sometimes they work out great…sometimes not so much. This cupcake is an easy cheat to getting the hat right, and since it uses cupcake cases instead of sugarpaste, it’s a doddle!

All you have to do is take a cupcake case, fold it in half and then fold it in half again until you have one quarter (image 1). Then, fold it in half again (image 2), a little piece of double sided tape will hold this together. Then, open up the case and place it on top of your iced cake. Then, to finish, take another case and quarter it. Cut of the point at the top, open it out (image 4), place it over the other case (image 5) and you’re done!

We hope you all have a great Halloween and let us know how you get on with your cupcakes! x

Covering A Cake

Using Sugarpaste

Covering a cake with sugarpaste/ready to roll icing/fondant can seem scary if you’ve never tried it but once you know how to do it, it isn’t as difficult as you’d think. In this post, I’ll explain each step to show you how to cover your very own cake, and give you little tips that I find useful.

For me, outside of cake school exams, I have never used marzipan on my cakes, I always use buttercream. If you want to use marzipan, however, here is a link to a helpful video to show you how it’s done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cPP-IulcKs. As mentioned at the end of this video, you can go on to cover your marzipan cake with sugarpaste. The method is the exact same as covering a buttercream cake.

Tools You Will Need

• 1 freshly baked cake (I would recommend using a 6-8 inch cake if this is your first time using sugarpaste (the smaller the cake, the easier it is to cover)
• Buttercream
• 2 cake boards/drums, 1 the same size as your cake and 1 a few inches larger

• 1 serrated knife/cake leveller
• 1 large palette knife
• 1 icing scraper/dough cutter

• 1 large rolling pin
• 1 measuring tape/ruler
• 2 cake smoothers

• 1 sharp knife/pizza cutter
• small pins
• small cup of water and a brush

Method

• Put your cool, freshly baked cake into the fridge to firm up. I usually leave mine in for a few hours, or overnight just to ensure it is firm enough.
• Once it is firm, take it out of the fridge. Using your serrated knife or cake leveller, trim the top of the cake so that it is level. Turn the cake upside down and cut it either in half, or into three, depending on how much filling you want. Secure the trimmed side to your smaller cake board with a little buttercream. Place the smaller board, with the cake, onto the larger board (I put a thin, small non slip mat between them. This stops the smaller board moving around when you are icing it).
• Add your filling to your cake, and give the outside of the cake a thin, even layer of buttercream with your palette knife. This is known as a ‘crumb coat’ because it basically seals in all the crumbs. Ensure that this is as smooth as possible, as any lumps will be seen through the sugarpaste. I use a sharp edged icing scraper around the sides and use my palette knife on top. You can also use a dough slicer. Put this back into the fridge until the buttercream is hard. I usually leave mine for a few hours and use the time to make decorations for the cake.
• Once the buttercream is hard, take the cake out of the fridge. Measure the width of the top of the cake, and the height with your measuring tape/ruler. This lets you know how much sugarpaste you will need (for example, if you have an 8 inch cake that is 3 inches tall, you add together the 8 for the width, and 3 for each side, giving you 14 inches).
• Brush a thin layer of water onto the top and sides of your cake. This ensures that the sugarpaste will stick to the buttercream. Make sure you don’t put too much though, as it can affect the sugarpaste.
• Remove your sugarpaste from its packaging and knead it until it is soft and pliable. Lightly dust your work surface with icing sugar. Using a large rolling pin, roll the sugarpaste out (ensuring it doesn’t stick to your work surface) until it is roughly 3-5mm thick. Measure the sugarpaste and make sure you have enough to cover your cake (for the example above, you would make sure you have 14 inches width and height). It is always better to have too much than not enough.

• Once you have your sugarpaste to the correct thickness, roll it over your rolling pin and then drape it over your cake.

• Using one of your smoothers, smooth the top to ensure there are no air bubbles. Then, using your hands, gently smooth around the edge of the cake and down the sides. If there are any folds in the icing, gently open them out and smooth them with your hands. Once the folds are gone, use your smoothers (one on top of the cake and one around the sides). This means the sugarpaste will be smooth and it won’t have any fingerprints on it!
• If there are any air bubbles, use a small pin to pierce them and then smooth them out again.
• Using your sharp knife/pizza cutter, trim the edges where the sugarpaste meets the larger board. If you’re feeling more confident, you can balance the cake on top of something smaller and trim the edges that way. Once the sugarpaste has hardened a little, you can add decorations to it.

(These pictures show a polystyrene dummy as opposed to a cake, that’s why there is no larger board underneath

My Tips

• Always turn your cake upside down once it has been trimmed and cut. This means the side that was touching the bottom of cake tin will be the top of your cake. This ensures it is always smooth and level.
• Once your cake has been cut, secure the new bottom (the side you have trimmed) to your smaller cake board with a small amount of buttercream. This stops it sliding around.
• When you place the smaller cake board on top of the larger cake board, put a thin non slip mat between them (small enough that it does not peek out the sides). This stops the smaller board moving around when you are icing it.
• ALWAYS make sure your sugarpaste is at room temperature, and ALWAYS knead it before you use it. Sugarpaste can be very temperamental, especially when it comes to temperature. If it has not been kneaded enough, it will not be pliable enough and this can cause tearing and can lead to your cake looking like it has been covered in ‘elephant skin’.
• Only take the sugarpaste out of its packaging when you are ready to use it. NEVER leave sugarpaste lying out uncovered as it hardens very quickly and then becomes useless. Always keep it sealed in a bag.
• Make sure you have a measuring tape or ruler handy, to measure how much sugarpaste you need.
• Always brush a small amount of water onto your buttercream just before you cover it. This ensures the sugarpaste will stick.
• Don’t use any icing sugar when you are kneading your sugarpaste as it just dries it out.
• When you are rolling out the sugarpaste, ensure there is always a very thin layer of icing sugar on your work surface to stop it sticking. Turn the sugarpaste around after every couple of rolls, this means there is less chance it will stick to your worktop.
• Make sure you have a few small pins handy, in case you need to pop any air bubbles.
• The most important thing is making sure you are using a type of sugarpaste you feel comfortable with. There are loads to choose from and no two cake decorators will agree on every type available. If you can, buy some small samples of different types of sugarpaste and see which best suits your needs. Make sure you note the colour, flavour and texture to see if it’s suitable for you.

Good luck if you are covering your first cake and let us know how you got on! x