Successful cake makers and suppliers have more than their skills and creativity working for them. Just as having the right ingredients ensures you get a wonderful-tasting cake, having the right tools, equipment and supplies ensures you create fantastic-looking cakes! Of course, you're free to spend your money on a variety of exciting tools and gadgets, but you don't need them all to get started. If you're putting together a list of must-have items for your cake-making business, you can use this guide to buy all that's essential to create lovely, mouth-watering cakes.
Measuring cups and spoons are basic to cooking but are especially important in baking which requires precise measurements. Remember to have a set of dry measuring cups for ingredients like flour, baking powder, sugar and the like. Use liquid measuring cups for liquids like water and milk.
Having a set of glass or stainless steel mixing bowls is essential for whipping up the ingredients you need for different baking projects, including cakes.
Cake pans come in a variety of shapes and sizes, including round, square, and rectangular. You may purchase cake pans constructed from heavy-gauge aluminium for even baking and durability. However, there's a range of materials used in making baking pans, such as tinned steel, stainless steel, glass, silicone, and stone.
Since accuracy is crucial in baking, you'll need a good set of scales for measuring certain ingredients. You may opt to use a digital or manual scale.
A whisk is a cooking utensil used to combine ingredients or incorporate air into mixtures. The majority of whisks have a long, slender handle with wire loops at the end.
Spatulas come in a range of shapes, sizes, and angles. When scraping off cake batter out of the bowl, silicone spatulas really help. Meanwhile, a cake offset or angled spatula is used to spread icing over a cake.
Using a silicone baking mat helps keep pans in good condition and makes clean-up a breeze! You can also use parchment paper to line your pans.
Cake recipes call for a cooling rack to ensure appropriate cooling before the decorating process. This piece of equipment allows air to circulate around a freshly baked cake as it cools, thereby preventing sogginess.
Using a turntable allows you to finish decorating a cake in the shortest amount of time possible whilst maintaining a high level of detail. The user's ability to rotate a turntable makes icing and decorating cakes exceedingly simple and hassle-free.
A cake board is made of a thick piece of material, such as cardboard, used to support cakes and make transporting them easier. It comes in various sizes, forms, and materials.
There are disposable and reusable silicone or plastic-coated cotton piping bags. Reusable decorating bags come with a basic set of piping tips, nozzles or tubes. These flexible, cone-shaped bags are used for extruding or piping cream, icing or ganache.
Use a cake scraper to smooth out the sides of the cake you're working on. For sharp edges and flawless, straight sides, you could use an acrylic disc and a cake scraper together. Meanwhile, an icing smoother helps smooth down sugar paste or marzipan once applied to the cake. You can also use a palette knife for smoothing on icing and cake fillings, among other things.
The intricacy of the fondant process can be challenging. But with a roll-up cutting mat, you can work the fondant; that is, roll, measure and cut it whilst ensuring it remains flawless. You can also use a roll-up cutting mat for other intricate tasks, such as cutting tiny cake decoration pieces.
Ready, Set, Bake!
To achieve your business goals, you need equipment, tools and supplies to complement your skills and talent as a professional cake-maker.
And although the above list doesn't include all the items you need to make delicious and fancy cakes, these are the essentials for your kitchen. But, of course, you can always add to them when you're ready.
Need help with your cake-making business?
Please reach out to us at Reward Hospitality New Zealand.