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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A few weeks ago, I got to help celebrate a super special moment in my friend’s life: revealing the gender of her sweet little baby to come! I can’t tell you how exciting it was to help celebrate and be part of the big surprise. Gender reveal parties are so much fun and I’ve seen tons of creative ways to make the big reveal even more spectacular. I wanted to translate that excitement into cupcake form, and lucky for me, SprinklePop just released a new line of Solid Sprinkle Mixes that were the perfect color to represent either gender!

In anticipation of the email I was going to get regarding which color to fill these cupcakes with, I ordered both the Light Pink and Light Blue sprinkle mixes. I got to use the Light Pink (it’s a girl!) inside the cupcakes, but ended up topping them with both colors.  

Side note: SprinklePop’s Solid Sprinkle Mixes come in 22 different colors! They’re all super beautiful and I can’t wait to order some of the other hues. Each mix contains a few different sprinkle shapes, so you get really cool texture in a monochromatic color palette. Gorgeous.

After filling the cupcakes with these pretty pink sprinkles, I topped them with some vanilla buttercream piping and a few sprinkles from each bottle. They definitely look like a mystery on the outside, and when cut open the pink (or blue!) sprinkles tumble out like a pinata. So much fun!

I’ve seen other ways to create gender reveal cupcakes (tinting buttercream filling or baking the color into the cupcake itself), but the sprinkle approach is hands-down my favorite! The best part about SprinklePop sprinkles is they actually taste good. If you’re gonna have a mouth full of sprinkles, they’ve got to be yummy!

You Will Need

• Baked cupcakes
• Piping tip or other circular device to cut a hole in the cupcake
• SprinklePop sprinkles in Light Pink or Light Blue
• Neutral-colored buttercream for frosting the cupcakes.
• Wilton piping tips: 1M, 4B, and 104 (optional)

Step 1: Make Room For Your Sprinkles

In order to fill the cupcakes with sprinkles, you’ll need to create some space within your baked cupcakes. To do so, I use the bottom of a large piping tip. You can use anything with a sharp, circular opening that’s about an inch in diameter.

Press the piping tip (bottom first) into the cupcake and the middle should come right out. You now have a nice cavity within the cupcake for filling with sprinkles!

Step 2: Fill With Sprinkles

Choose either pink or blue SprinklePop sprinkles to fill the center of the cupcake with, and pour them in until they’re flush with the top.

Continue until all of the cupcakes are filled.

Step 3: Frost The Cupcakes

Using a neutral-colored buttercream (I’ve gone with this classic vanilla buttercream recipe), frost the tops of the cupcakes to cover up your sprinkle cavity. The design I’ve created involves piping an off-centered rosette with Wilton tip 1M, then piping a squiggle (for lack of a better word!) with Wilton tip 104 next to the rosette. For the remainder of the cupcake, I’ve piped a few open stars with Wilton Tip 4B.

I finished the cupcake design with a few sprinkles in each color (to keep it a big surprise!), but you can decorate your cupcakes any way you like. As long as you go with a gender neutral design on top, you’re good to go! Now all that’s left to do is prepare yourself to be part of one of the most special moments ever.

The post Sprinkle Filled Gender Reveal Cupcakes appeared first on Sugar & Sparrow.

Here’s a little video I whipped up to show you all of the different looks you can create in minutes. Take a look for inspiration, then I’ll show you the step-by-step.

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. Clicking and purchasing from 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!

You Will Need:

• Baked cupcakes
• Medium consistency buttercream in any color
• Piping bags
• Wilton Tips: 1M, 4B, 104, and/or 1A
• Small icing spatula

Rosette

Using tip 1M (you could alternatively use 2D to get a similar look), pipe a swirl starting in the center of the cupcake and ending on the outer edge.

This one is so classic and totally ends up looking like a little buttercream garden rose.

Open Stars

Using tip 4B, pipe open stars over the surface of the cupcake.

This is my all-time favorite design, and I often use a few different colors with this technique. It never fails to impress.

Basic Swirl

Using tip 1M, pipe a swirl starting on the outer edge and building upon each turn until you build a little mountain of a swirl. It should end up looking like a soft serve ice cream cone.

This was the very first technique I learned and it’s still such a timeless look.

Open Star Swirl

Using tip 4B, pipe a swirl starting on the outer edge and ending in the center. It looks best when you build upon each turn to create a swirly little buttercream mountain.

This look can be further enhanced with a few pretty sprinkles on top.

Pom Pom

Holding tip 104 vertically with the skinny end pointed upward, pipe a few squiggles in a swirl in the very center on the cupcake. Continue to add ruffley piping in a circular pattern around the center swirl until you reach the edge.

This is a very similar technique to buttercream carnations, and it ends up looking like a pretty little pom pom that looks great in any color!

Ruffles

Holding tip 104 flat against the cupcake with the thinner edge pointed outward and the larger edge pointing to the center of the cupcake, pipe a row of ruffles around the outer edge by moving the tip slightly up and down. For the next set of ruffles, hold the tip at a 45 degree angle and pipe the next row so that it stands a little bit taller. For the final and innermost set of ruffles, hold the tip at more of a 75 degree angle so they stand taller than the previous set.

This look is really amazing when you use different colors for each row, especially in an ombrè color scheme.

Spatula Swirl

Using a small icing spatula, place a dollop of buttercream on top of the cupcake and work it around until you’ve got an even bulb of buttercream, then use the spatula to create a swirl in the center as you slowly rotate the cupcake.

This one doesn’t involve a piping tip, but it’s such a classic look that many renowned bakeries still use on the daily.

Rounded Spikes

Using tip 1A, pipe dots all over the surface of the cupcakes. Easy as that!

When I brought all of these cupcakes over to a friend’s house, this was the one all the kids were pining over.

Round Tip Swirl

Using tip 1A, pipe a swirl starting on the outer edge and building until you get to the center.

This one is super simple and can be always be classed up with some pretty sprinkles.  

Ruffled Swirl

Using tip 1M, pipe a swirl starting on the outer edge and working your way to the center, only move your hand back and forth to create a ruffled look as you pipe and build upon your swirl.

It’s amazing how a simple move of your hand as you pipe can create such different results than a basic swirl.

The right piping tips and techniques make all the difference when it comes to creating flawless cupcakes. These are definitely the easiest looks to create, but they’re still some of my go-to’s when it comes to cupcake decorating.

Which one is your favorite look? Let me know in the comments below!

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