Have you ever seen a gorgeous buttercream cake and wanted to have a go at making it? Or do you have someone in your life that you’d like help get their caking journey started? If it’s all feeling a little overwhelming on what tools you should get to get started, then here is my Top 5 Tools for Beautiful Buttercream Cakes.

A prerequisite for beautiful cakes with the professional touch, is even cake layers. You can achieve even cake layers using a serrated cake knife, or a cake leveler. Cake levelers range from entry-level wire-based levelers, through to professional-grade blade-based levelers. Wire-based levelers are good enough for softer sponge cakes, however if you’re intending to get through mudcakes, you may want to consider one of the other options that has a sharper blade.

Toolkit Basics

Here is a list of my Top 5 tools that will take your buttercream cakes to the next level (note that I am not affiliated with any brands/products – this is just what tools that I have used and recommend from my own experience). I am going to omit the basics of a mixer, cake tins, etc as these days you can actually buy ready-made naked cakes and ready-made buttercream icing – so I’m just going to use that as a baseline.

1. A cake turntable – If you’re just getting started and looking to get into cake decorating on a budget, you can pick up a decent plastic cake turntable for about $20 from cake decorating stores or even from Spotlight. If you’re looking for a smooth spin and something a bit better quality, I recommend getting a metal turntable which usually start from about $50-$60 but when on sale can from in at around $40 for a Mondo metal turntable. Wondering which one I have? I have one like this:
   
2. Offset spatulas (also known as cranked spatulas) – Now what size spatula you will use will depend on what size cake you’re making, but I’ve found that I’ve typically only needed to use 2 sizes for all my variety of cakes – a larger one (~25cm), and a smaller one (~12cm). I’ve tried them in different brands and designs, and I have found the key to having a better ‘user experience’ with them (at least from my perspective), is to get one that’s fairly light to avoid fatigue setting in with slathering on the buttercream lol The brand that I’ve settled on as the easiest to use due to lighter weight is Mondo – the rest I’ve given away.
   
3. Scraper – this can get a bit overwhelming with the amount of scraper designs that you can get nowadays. But I’ll give you the pointers to watch out for
   1. Ensure that there is a clean 90 degree corner so that you get a crisp corner where the cake/buttercream meets the cake board
   2. Get a good quality, sturdy stainless steel scraper that isn’t prone to flexing/bending, so that you get a nice straight edge
   3. Aim the get a scraper length that best matches your cake height – if you are starting out with only doing standard height cakes, get a scraper designed for standard height cakes. I find using a taller scraper on a shorter cake can actually make things a bit trickier, so I have scrapers of different lengths.
   4. Something to consider is comfort/ergonomics when using the scraper. I know as time has gone on for me, I find it uncomfortable-borderline-painful to use a scraper without a handle now for long periods of time. So yes, I ended up investing in a scraper with a handle to add to my collection.
      

4. Piping tips (and don’t forget to get some disposable piping bags too!) – so many to choose from, where do you start? I wish someone had given me a list of tips as I started out. Here are my top 5 tips that I find I go to all. the. time, and is a solid start to anyone’s piping tip addiction collection:
   1. Wilton #1M – I’m going to be specific with brand on this one, as I’ve found other 1Ms (such as Ateco or Loyal) aren’t quite the same shape. Stick with Wilton on this one 😉 This is my #1 go-to tip for cupcake rosette swirls and unicorn cakes.
      
   2. Wilton #2D – Another fan-favourite is the 2D tip that produces a daintier rosette swirl than the fuller rosette produced by the 1M.
      
   3. Wilton #4B –
      
   4. Wilton #32 – Perfect for piping ‘kisses’ (stars), shells, swirls and more. Smaller than #4B, this tip is my preference for piping a shell border around the base of a cake, as can be seen on this tutorial.
      
   5. Wilton #366 – this is the larger leaf tip. If you want smaller leaves, you can follow this blog’s instructional that explains how you can cut a small ‘v’ shape at the tip of your piping bag in lieu of using a smaller leaf tip such as #352.
      
5. OK so the top 4 should be enough to get you 90% of the way there to producing gorgeous buttercream cakes, and I’m sitting here deep in thought as to what to suggest as #5. Given that this is a blog post about buttercream cakes, I’ve decided to lean in and propose a tool specifically for buttercream cakes – and that is a palette knife set. You can unleash your inner artist and create some beautiful textured buttercream cakes using palette knives. There is a myriad of online YouTube videos that can explain some beginner techniques on how to use them, but here a blog post to get you started on some inspiration 🙂
   

Once you start on your buttercream cake journey, you’ll inevitably expand on this toolkit as you venture into different techniques and find new needs. I know some cake makers that love using stencils, some that love piping flowers using a flower nail, and some that use cake combs. There’s a world of possibilities for buttercream cake decorating, and I hope this blog helps you as you start on your journey!