Making cake is an expensive hobby. Extremely expensive. There are so many tools, gadgets, colors, dusts, cutters, and do-dads it’s overwhelming. And the more specialty the stuff is, the higher the price tag. If you do this as a profession (or addiction), you are constantly buying buying buygin, and it can get seriously out of control.
Just like anything, there are high priced tools, cutters, veiners, etc. that you can spend thousands on at the cake store. The thing is, some of it is stuff that’s repackaged and marked up or you can just as easily use something cheap in place of that super expensive specialty item. That’s where hacks come in.
A “hack” is repurposing something for something else that it wasn’t designed for. I have a few cake hacks I want to share.
Bubbles in Fondant:
There is no purchased tool that exists and is marketed for popping those pesky fondant air bubbles. A lot of people use straight pins. I don’t. First, straight pins are not marketed as a food product so they aren’t exactly sanitary, they are also dangerous. I actually rolled a straight pin into my fondant once because I was in a hurry, set the pin down on the counter, forgot, set a ball of fondant on top of it, and rolled away. Talk about a close call!
My Hack:
I use hypodermic needles. Yes, the kind you get when you have diabetes. Let’s face it, everyone knows someone with diabetes – ask them for a few of their needles. The needles themselves are tiny, it’s much harder to loose track of them, and they are sterile. They work wonderfully and you can’t see the pin prick on your fondant at all.
The Cheapest Flower Veiners You’ll Ever Use
If you are in to making sugar flowers, you quickly realize that there is not only a special cutter for every single flower; there are also special silicone veiners for them. The cutters are generally pretty spendy, but good veiners are crazy expensive. Certain flowers have certain characteristics, and if you are a true naturalist and want a 100% botanically correct flower, you probably want to spend the money on the veiner. But if you are like me and are perfectly happy to have the flower look 95% botanically correct, you are perfectly happy with short cuts. And boy, do I have one for you.
My Hack:
Dried corn husks. Like what they make tamales in? Some only are a little rippled. Some are a lot. You can flatten them out a bit if you need to. They are marketed as food so they are sanitary and you can buy a crapton for less then a buck. I have an all-purpose silicone veiner that I paid $80 for that is mostly retired in favor of the deep groves and veins that I can get using a dried corn husk.
Another cheap veiner? Viva paper towel. Flowers like magnolias, white orchids, and roses have some texture, but not much. Sure, you can buy silicone veiners, but they are really unnecessary for those of us that just want “close enough”. Just dust a Viva with some cornstarch and press your petal into it. It leaves a very natural surface on the petal and makes them more realistic. The microscopic grooves also help the petal to grab and retain colored dusts.
What about you? What hacks do you use when making cakes?
Beyond Buttercream, formerly From Scratch, SF 
Fruit Trays – this is what i use to get the shape i need for large flowers – make that extra large flowers. My daling little fruit shop man (lets call him Tony) sets various trays aside for me when the different seasoned fruits come in…. whether it be a large 36 hole cardboard tray for Peaches – A smaller cardboard tray that held Apples or a smaller one again that held precious little Apricots – Yes, dear Tony sets them aside for me to collect when next i go shop. They are Food Grade safe – no chemicles used to make them – and i can cut them down if i don’t need them so big. I can brush them down with a clean damp cloth – pop them into my oven to air dry (turned off oven of course) and after about 10 minutes they are as good as new again. They also come in a food grade Plastic – the one i have is deep – and held large white peaches.
Bakers Bread Trays………. i have two large Bakers Bread Tray that measure 3 feet x 3 feet square – i bought polystyrene sheets – cut down to size so as to fit in the Bread Trays -and these i use to carry 72 cupcakes at a time – Yes, i do have 6 Cupcake Couriers – but i find the Bread Trays perfect for transporting large ammounts of Cupcakes – plus they stack beautifully on top of each other – once full of cupcakes – they don’t move an inch during transportation…. I won’t spend another dollar on containers to carry many cupcakes… They are easyly washed down – and stack either flat or on their end so as not to take up alot of room.
Fishing Tackle Boxes – perfect for keeping all the *little bits* that one gathers. Half the price of *cake storage boxes* – can be found in any hardware store… Again – they are made from a safe plastic. The little dividers can easily be moved to form larger spaces if need be.
Foam Dummies – i don’t buy *them* – I go to my Mr Foam Shop – choose the long Foam Cylinder that i require – (say an 8 inch round) ask Mr Foam to cut it to the length i require – and voila – i have my Foam Dummy at a quarter of the price that cake decorating stores sell them for. Plus at the Mr Foam Store – he has far more sizes for me to choose from than the standard sizes sold by cake decorating shops.
Shall come back when i rmember what other *hacks* i use.
Great thread…
Mx
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I love your ideas! I will be saving my corn husks!
Love the tackle box suggestion. Now why have I never thought of that before?
Oh, another one I recently saw from Joshua John Russell was to use your discarded butter wrappers to line the bottom of your cake pans instead of using parchment paper. Genius!
Lollll – my grandmother taught me to do that 100+ years ago – for her fruitcakes she would rub the butter over a brown paper bag that had been cut to size to fit her cake tins –
One thing one has to be careful of tho when using those wrappers from a margarine container is…. make sure that there is no oil in the margarine… i know butter wrappers should be used – but i know of people who use margarine wrappes…just thought i would mention it.
I use a spatula for turning hamburgers, flipping pancakes etc, for making polka dots on a cake when I use sprinkles. The spat I have has holes in it so I just hold close to the top of the cake and sprinkle the sprinkles:)
Awesome!
Oh, I though of another one! Coring strawberries – most people just cut off the tops. It waists a lot of berry that way. I pull off the green stems, rinse, then use a large star tip pastry tube! It pulls out the core and the bitter bits that you don’t want, leaving tasty berry! I plow thru pounds of berries pretty fast doing this and I don’t have to worry about cutting my fingers off.
Awesome! I especially love the corn husk and the strawberry core ideas.
Oh my goodness! You just saved the day with the cornhusks trick! I am going to start making peonies for an upcoming wedding cake very soon and was not looking forward to putting out $25 or more for a peony veiner. I don’t give a rat’s a$$ about how exact the veins on the thing are–I just want them to be pretty! I was soooooo ticked even thinking about buying that veiner I knew I’d almost NEVER use. Thanks so much!
LOL! I’m telling you, Between my orchid veiner, corn husks and a roll of viva paper towels, most of my flower veining needs are totally net 😀
Since I’m not good enough to tort cakes evenly by eye, I put my cakes in tart pans with removable bottoms, then use the height of the pan to guide my knife through the cake to cut it in half. Sometimes I have to put a coaster underneath to raise it a bit if the cake is too short; but I get much more consistently even halves doing this.