Cake Pan Set

While it’s perfectly okay to bake your cakes one layer at a time, it’s much more efficient to have a set of cake pans so you can bake all your layers at once. I always like to make triple layer cakes, so I recommend having at least three of your favorite pan sizes. My go-to size is a 6-inch round pan, but a set of 8-inch round pans are great to have on hand too. And opt for anodized aluminum instead of dark metal – it bakes more evenly! 

Cake Turntable

It’s impossible to get a smooth buttercream finish without a cake turntable. It’s also just all-around easier to fill, stack, and decorate cakes with a turntable even if you’re going for a rustic look. The one thing I recommend is finding a cake turntable with a non-slip pad. This will ensure your cake won’t budge while you’re decorating! 

Icing Smoother

It’s super important to find an icing smoother that you feel totally compatible with. I’ve tried a lot of them over the years, but my all time favorite ended up being this bench scraper by Norpro. I use it 100% of the time! I love that it’s perfectly level, easy to grip, and can be gently heated for a super smooth buttercream finish. 

Icing Spatulas

Icing spatulas are extremely versatile. I use them to apply buttercream to my cakes before smoothing them, create sharp edges, add texture to my cakes, and more. It’s best to have a few sizes on hand for different tasks. 

Cardboard Cake Rounds

Every cake I make is built on top of a cardboard cake round. This makes it much easier to transfer the cake off the turntable and onto a stand or into a box. 

Piping Bags

Sure, you can use a ziploc bag for piping buttercream (I have in a pinch!), but it’s so much more efficient to have piping bags on hand. I like to buy the 16-inch size because it holds enough to pipe a lot of buttercream but can also be trimmed down into smaller bags. 

Piping Tips

If you have zero piping tips in your collection and just want to start with a few, I recommend the two below. They’re both extremely versatile – 1M is great for rosettes and swirl borders, 4B is great for star shapes and swirls borders. 

Cake Leveler

Every picture perfect cake starts with perfectly level layers. Since they don’t always bake up flat, it’s handy to have a cake leveler for cutting off domed or misshapen tops. This will make all of your layers the exact same height as well. 

Food Color Gels

It’s so much fun to incorporate color into your cake decorating! My favorite brand of coloring to use is AmeriColor for a few reasons: they don’t add any weird flavor to your buttercream, they’re super concentrated so it doesn’t take a whole lot of food coloring to achieve the color you want, and they come in every single color you could possibly imagine. While they do have Nifty Fifty and Heavenly Seventy kits that include pretty much every color you could want in your collection, they also make a starter kit (below) that has all the basics. 

Anyone Can Cake: Your Complete Guide to Making & Decorating Perfect Layer Cakes

My book is written with beginners and those wanting to up their cake decorating skills in mind! It’s essentially everything I know about making and decorating layer cakes. The first half covers how to bake the perfect cake layers, create a structurally sound layer cake, and decorate it in all sorts of ways. It includes full guides and troubleshooting tips on ganache drips, coloring buttercream, and adding finishing touches like sprinkles and piping. 

The second half is all recipes you could want to practice everything you learn in the first half of the book. It’s truly an all encompassing handbook that will set you up for success and help grow your skills! 

I put together a little Amazon shop with all of these essential tools in one place. Click the link below to shop them all at once!

I’m cheering you on in your cake making and am here to support you however I can. Once you get your collection of tools going, be sure to check out my Cake Basics series to learn all the fundamentals! That series paired with my book will be a game changer. Happy caking!

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Some of my first decorating tools (which I still have to this day) were from Wilton and I’ve been loyal to the brand ever since. This giveaway is going to set you up with everything you need to make perfect layer cakes and more!

What You’ll Win

In addition to a signed copy of Anyone Can Cake, ONE lucky winner will get a beautiful collection of essential cake decorating tools from Wilton:

• Cake Turntable
• Navy/Gold Icing Spatula Set
• Icing Smoother
• Icing Comb Set
• Gold Piping Tips Set
• 100 Piping Bags 
• Cake Leveler
• Set of Two 8-inch Cake Pans
• Color Right Performance Food Coloring System

How to Enter

From March 23rd to March 24th, head to this Instagram post and follow the simple instructions in the caption. The winner will be chosen at random by me, contacted via DM, and announced on March 25th, 2023! You must be 18 or older and live in the US to qualify (sorry, worldwide friends! I’ll have giveaways for you coming up!) 

I titled my book Anyone Can Cake because I am a firm believer that anyone can make beautiful cakes with the right tools, resources, and willingness to practice. This giveaway will get the tools and resources covered for you, which will hopefully make practicing FUN! Head to my Instagram for all the details and may the odds be ever in your favor.

The post Anyone Can Cake x Wilton GIVEAWAY! appeared first on Sugar & Sparrow.

Cake Decorating Tools

• Gold icing spatula set – a great set of icing spatulas, but also pretty to look at (because they’re gold!) 
• Gold piping tips – these are some of my favorite and most-used Wilton tips, but gold. So even more exciting to use!
• Piping tip set – the perfect starter kit for any aspiring cake decorator
• AmeriColor Nifty Fifty food coloring kit – 50 of the best AmeriColor food color gels. It’s my favorite food color gel brand of all time. 
• AmeriColor Heavenly Seventy food coloring kit – 70 gorgeous AmeriColor food color gels! This kit lasts for so long and has every color you can imagine. 
• Ateco cake turntable – every cake decorator needs a turntable, and this one is the very best. It has the smoothest rotation, which makes it so much easier to frost a smooth cake. Plus, it’s so beautiful that it can double as a cake stand! 
• Pretty sprinkles – Sprinkle Pop has some of the prettiest sprinkles around, and this rainbow mix is one of my favorite blends ever. Any cake decorator would be thrilled to decorate with these! 
• Fancy Sprinkles Prism Powder – edible glitter! Need I say more? 

Baking Tools

• Cute oven mitts – for protecting your hands in style.
• Funfetti spatula set – because nothing is more fun than funfetti
• Kitchen torch – I get a real thrill any time I get to use my kitchen torch. It’s a necessity for torching meringue, toasting marshmallows, and more. 
• Rainbow whisks – these put the fun in functional, because rainbow! 
• Rainbow measuring cups – these iridescent rainbow measuring cups are pretty to look at and built to last. 
• Gold measuring cups – I absolutely love these measuring cups. They’re so elegant that I use them as food photography props in addition to measuring my ingredients!
• KitchenAid stand mixer – my favorite brand of stand mixer and something I use every single day. This is for the baker who is ready to fall deeper in love with baking. 
• KitchenAid hand mixer – perfect for whipping up recipes by hand as an alternative to the stand mixer.

Fun Gifts

• The Great British Baking Show Board Game – even if you can’t actually be on the Great British Baking Show, this game is a fun way to pretend that you are (competing with friends and loved ones, of course). 
• Bakers Gonna Bake sweatshirt – a cute nod to Taylor Swift for wearing around the kitchen (or anywhere!) 
• Pink cake stand – for a pop of color that goes with almost any cake. 
• White cake stand – I have this cake stand and have used it for countless photo shoots, including my book cover! It’s the perfect stand to display any cake. 
• Stand mixer ornament – the perfect addition to any baker’s Christmas tree.
• Butter ornament – because butter makes everything better.
• That’s a Good Bake mug – who wouldn’t love seeing this quote by Mary Berry every time they drink their morning coffee? 
• Pretty recipe box – my husband gifted me this recipe box so that I could write down all of my most cherished recipes. It’s such a thoughtful idea and I’ve already started archiving recipes to pass down through the generations!
• Sprinkle socks – these are just the cutest socks ever.

Practical Gifts 

• Cookbook stand – for holding cookbooks open while baking, but also so stylish you can leave it right out on the counter. 
• Bluetooth earbuds – for listening to music and podcasts while baking, which makes it all the more fun!
• Recipe testing journal – for the baker who loves to recipe test and come up with originals. 
• Linen apron – I have this apron and wear it on the daily! It’s cute, comfortable, and saves all of my clothes from getting dusted with powdered sugar. 
• Audible membership – for listening to audiobooks while baking!
• Amazon Prime membership – for free 2-day shipping on baking tools, decorating tools, and anything they need. 

Books

• Anyone Can Cake: Your Complete Guide to Making & Decorating Perfect Layer Cakes  – my book! This will help any aspiring cake maker take things to the next level.
• Tartine – recipes from the best bakery ever (in my opinion). They changed the bakery scene in San Francisco and are fully worth the hype. This book features some of their most famous recipes and is perfect for learning croissants, galettes, tarts, brioche, and so much more. 
• All About Cake: A Milk Bar Cookbook – because who doesn’t love Milk Bar? Their cake recipes are so inspiring and perfect for the baker who loves making cake but doesn’t want to get crazy with decorating. 
• Ace of Cakes: Inside the World of Charm City Cakes – Charm City Cakes was the first bakery to inspire my cake making journey. This book shows some of the coolest cake art ever! 
• Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously – an all-around fun and inspiring read
• The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage – my SIL gifted this book to me and I loved it so much I have to share. It’s a collection of essays, all of which are centered around food and the memories associated with it. A really fun read.
• My Life in France (Julia Child) – This book is so inspiring and is a beautiful memoir by Julia Child. It covers her life in France, the writing of her most famous cookbook, her journey into the world of television, and so much more.

There you have it – my top gift picks for any baker! I hope you find the perfect gift idea on this list or get inspired to add some of these to your own wishlist. And if you think of something amazing that’s not on this list, let me know in the comments below and I’ll be sure to check it out!

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When hunting around for the perfect kitchen scale, I realized that there were more options than I could wrap my head around. I read reviews, watched videos, and asked some friends how they liked (or disliked!) their kitchen scales before making a purchase. After all my research, I decided on this OXO kitchen scale. It’s stainless steel with a digital display, and it couldn’t be easier to use! I couldn’t be a happier baker.

The coolest things about the OXO kitchen scale is that it has a removable platform for easy cleaning, pull-out display in case you’ve got a big bowl blocking your view of the numbers, and easy-to-understand instructions for a first time user (like me!). I was able to start using it right away since it came with all the batteries I needed. If you’re in need of a good digital kitchen scale, this one comes highly recommended from not only me, but America’s Test Kitchen as well. I watched them compare this scale to a dozen others and it came out way on top.

After spending time measuring ingredients and testing things out, I’m happy to say that every single recipe on my blog now features measurements in grams and milliliters as well as cups, so you’ll never have to do a rapid Google search to figure out how much an ingredient weighs in grams ever again. I’ll add the metric measurements to every recipe I create from here on out. I hope this makes your baking sessions with my recipes easier than ever!

Disclaimer: this post does contain some affiliate links, meaning I may receive a small commission if you click them and purchase items I’ve recommended. Using these links won’t cost you any extra money, but they do help to keep Sugar & Sparrow up and running. Thank you for your support!

The post Baking With The Metric System: My New OXO Kitchen Scale appeared first on Sugar & Sparrow.

I wanted to shed a spotlight on my favorite piping tip of all time, the classic Wilton 4B. It’s an open star tip that I’ve come to love for creating unique designs on cakes and cupcakes. It really shines when you get a little crafty with color.

I once made a cupcake rainbow with my 4B tip by creating different shades of buttercream. I think there are 14 colors represented here.

And made some monochromatic magic with a few different shades of teal.

I’ve created an under-the-sea inspired cake for a friend who loves diving. I love how it turned out looking like a coral reef.

And created a little sunny ombrè cake.

I’ve also used it several times to accent my cake designs. I just love that extra pop of texture it adds!

Have you tried any of these looks with 4B? I want to see ‘em. Tag me on Instagram and show me!

The post My Favorite Piping Tip: Wilton 4B appeared first on Sugar & Sparrow.