Cake and Cookie Decorating Tools I Love • baste cut fold

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As an artist and designer, I especially love cake and cookie decorating. While bread baking and pizza making are fun (and delicious!), I’ll always have a special affinity for pastry-related projects which allow me to apply the skills I’ve learned in my costume design and illustration careers. And cake and cookie decorating definitely fit the bill!

In honing my decorating skills, I’ve developed a list of go-to products and tools which elevate the artistic elements of my pastry work, add special finishing touches, and, in some cases, just make the work a whole lot easier. Below are a few of the cake and cookie decorating products I love. (For macaron-specific supply recommendations, feel free to check out this list of macarons tools I love, too!)

Mini Cutters

I use my miniature cutters to create fondant shapes for cakes, cookies, and macarons. Miniature cutters are also perfect for slice-and-bake cookies with designs in the middle, like these sunny lemon daisy cookies.

Oil Based Food Coloring

I don’t use this as often as I use my gels, but it’s good to keep a set of oil-based food colorings on hand if you want to tint white chocolate for piping or other decorations.

Letter Stamper

I love my letter stamper! It’s an extremely affordable (under $10 on Amazon) way to personalize cookies and fondant decorations by adding names, dates, or fun sayings.

Rainbow Sprinkles

I always have the basics (rainbow sprinkles, white nonpareils, rainbow nonpareils, chocolate sprinkles) on hand. I also like to stock a variety of novelty sprinkles. Fancy Sprinkles is my go-to for these.

Gel Food Coloring

Gel food coloring is a must for tinting buttercreams and royal icings, or even for coloring the cookie dough itself. I also use my gel food colorings for painting designs on macaron shells.

Fondant Tools

I use a set of fondant tools for fondant projects (of course!) but they’re also great for other types of detail-oriented work, like royal icing piping—the pointy-edged tool is perfect for cleaning up piping mistakes.

Sanding Sugar

I always have sanding sugar in a variety of colors—it’s great if you want to roll balls of cookie dough in colorful sugar, and is also perfect for sprinkling on top of buttercream, or as a finishing touch for royal icing cookies.

Piping Bags

Although decorators prefer to use reusable piping bags, disposable piping bags are a true time-saver for me. I use these clear piping bags, as well as these sturdy blue piping bags when piping thick or difficult-to-pipe doughs, or for creating multicolored buttercreams.

Piping Tips

If you decorate cakes and cookies frequently, you’ll want to start building a stash of piping tips in a variety of shapes and sizes. Be sure to include a set of teeny tiny round piping tips—these are great for writing text, or for piping very small details.

Round Cutters

A set of round cutters is a great multi-purpose addition to any baking toolkit. I use mine for cutting cookie dough, as well as for reshaping baked cookies to make them perfectly round. Round cutters are great for cutting fondant, or for tracing or making macaron templates, too.

Meringue Powder

For royal icing cookies, I opt for meringue powder instead of egg whites. in meringue powder, the whites have been pasturized and dried, reducing salmonella risk and making cookies safe to store at room temp.

Edible Glitter

This one is just for fun! I love adding a dusting of edible glitter to my royal icing cookies, cakes, and macarons. The sparkly, food-safe glitter catches the light and makes the cookies shimmer, plus it looks nice in photos, too.

Fun Cutters

Paint Brushes

Edible Markers

If piping isn’t your strong suit, you can use edible markers to add text to cakes and cookies. I’ll occasionally use them to add fine details or tiny text.

Cookie Swivel

A turntable or cookie swivel will make decorating projects so much easier. I have a larger one for frosting cakes, and a miniature one for cookies.

Squeeze Bottle

A squeeze bottle makes it easier to add royal icing via the “flooding” technique (although, I’ll sometimes use a wide round piping tip for the same purpose!) or to drizzle melted chocolate, royal icing, and other liquids.

Fondant

Some people make their own fondant, but I purchase commercially-made fondant for most cake decorating and modelling projects. In the US I usually buy Renshaw or Wilton Decorator Preferred; in the UK I like Dr. Oetker.

Tylose Powder

Tylose or Gum-Tex gives fondant increased pliability, strength, and elasticity, and helps decorations hold their shape. It can also be mixed with water to make an edible “glue” for attaching fondant decorations to one another, or adding them to a fondant-covered cake.

Mini Palette Knife

I use my mini palette knife nearly every day. It’s perfect for slathering buttercream or ganache on cookies, but also for things like transferring pastries between trays. If you plan to decorate cakes, it’s also good to invest in a set of full-size palette knives.

British Cutters

I love this whimsical set of British biscuit cutters for making my own homemade custard creams, bourbon biscuits, and jammy dodgers.

Square Cutters

These square cutters are great for cutting fondant, or for tracing or making templates, too. In addition to my squares, I also have round and rectangular cutters.

Cake Scraper

I use these to add texture to buttercream cakes and cupcakes. Decorative edged scrapers can also create thin ribbons of tempered chocolate.

Cookie Scoop

I prefer a cookie scoop with a release, similar to an ice cream scoop. The release makes scooping chilled chocolate chip cookie dough a breeze!

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