Chef Anne shares her best ‘off-label’ cake hacks and supplies while attending pastry school.
We’ve all been there. You’re in the middle of baking a cake and you run out of a key ingredient. You’re mixing ingredients and end up with more on you and on your counter than in the mixing bowl. Baking can be a headache, but it really doesn’t have to be. To ease your baking-induced stress, you can turn to these super hacks.
- Blue Painter’s Tape: Need to make straight lines on fondant? Apply blue painter’s tape to the outside of your fondant and follow with your decor! When you’re done, it peels right off and doesn’t leave a mark!
- Forget using your bench scraper for smoothing out the sides of your cakes! Head to the drywall section! Use 6” for joint knife for shorter cakes and a 10” taping knife for taller cakes!
- Vodka: Vodka evaporates much faster than water and won’t dissolve the sugar in fondant the way water will. Use it to “glue” fondant decor to your cake, liquify your luster dust for airbrushing and thin out gel food coloring to “paint” on your cakes.
- Nonslip shelf liner: Place under your cakes while transporting so they don’t slide around in the car during a delivery!
- Craft Easy Cutter: Stop trying to saw your wooden dowels with a knife! Buy a craft easy cutter, which is designed to cut small wood strips!
- Can’t afford a sheeter for fondant or gumpaste? Dust off your pasta machine! It gets the fondant and gumpaste super thin for flowers, ruffles, or stripes.
- Don’t forget to get yourself some Xacto knifes more precision that using your paring knives.
- Can’t afford fruit puree and don’t to make your own? Head to the baby food aisle! Pouches of 100% organic fruit puree is exactly what is in those pouches!
- Need some quick writing chocolate for garnish? Add 2 tsp canola oil to 1 cup of melted chocolate chips!
- Wooden manicure sticks work great for adjusting fondant and gumpaste decor and any other “mistake” that you need to carefully fix!
