Check out this list of the most useful equipment to buy when starting out in decorating with buttercream. Or are you looking to buy some really useful things for the buttercream decorator in your life? This list will help!
A very useful thing, the spatula. Angled spatulas, also known as cranked spatulas, are great for getting the buttercream from the mixing bowl onto the cake, and smoothing it on. The handle ensures you keep your fingers out of the icing! You can decorate with a spatula too, from a simple swirl on a cupcake, to more intricate designs on a cake. Grab a 4" one and a 6" one.
The other type of spatula is the silicone spatula, which will ensure you get every last bit of cake batter and buttercream out of the mixing bowl (much to the dismay of anyone waiting to lick the bowl!)
Scrapers are needed to get the sides of your cakes looking super smooth and straight. There are a few options available, but the key thing to look out for in your scraper search is that it has a square corner. If it's rounded, it'll leave an unsightly smear around the bottom of your cake - no one wants that!
Metal: These come in all different heights. Personally, I find them best for buttercream.
Acrylic: The advantage of acrylic scrapers is that they are around 6mm thick, so it's easier to keep them flat on the board. The OG is Janet O'Sullivan's clear scrapers. These have a bevelled edge and are see through so you can, well, see through them at what is going on behind.
Colour Mill have brought out their own colourful acrylic scrapers, and they are flying out the door. Along with being aesthetically pleasing in on trend colours, they feature ruler markings and a bevelled edge for precise scraping.
Piping bags come on all different sizes and different material. Here are the ones to start with:
Disposable plastic ones: They come in packs of 10, and in three sizes. The bigger the bag, the more icing you can fit in, but the more unwieldy the bag can get. I suggest a 15" bag for the beginner. Not too big and not too small. No clean up required, you chuck 'em away when done.
Then you can test out the other options if you want to:
Compostable plastic ones: More environmentally friendly, these compostable ones are still single use, but are a little more eco friendly as they are not made of plastic. These bags are food service certified and BPA-free, made of compostable resin (C200 Resin), a family of compostable materials which is made from a variety of vegetable and grain starches such as corn, potato and cereal. C200 Resin is commercially compostable and can be taken to a composting facility for eco-friendly disposal.
Reuseable bags: These bags must be washed in hot soapy water and hung out to dry before being used again. They are made of polyester. I suggest a 14" or 16" to start with.
Cotton bags: made with water resistant cotton, and a poly lining, these feel really nice to pipe with. They need to be washed and dried to make sure they last a long time. This set has three sizes included, so you can play around with them and find the best size for you!
Grab a pack of these ties to easily seal off the end of the bag and prevent buttercream explosions!
This is a blog post all by itself so we'll just stick with a couple of great sets, which provide a lot of the most used tips:
Loyal 8 Piece Piping Kit: This includes 6 medium sized tips to create a lot of different effects including beautiful rose swirls on cupcakes. It comes with a washable piping bag and a coupler so you can swap all the tips out whilst using the same buttercream and bag.
Loyal 29 Piece Piping Kit: This kit includes 26 standard sized piping tips, two flower nails and a coupler. The piping tips are all really useful - several sizes of round tip, open star tips, closed star tips and a few different petal and leaf tips.
When filling piping bags, it sometimes feels like you need to be an octopus with eight hands to do the job! With the piping bag holder, two hands is fine! Just plonk your bag in the cone, fill it up with buttercream, take it out and pipe. It's (just about) as easy as that. The wide base means it won't turn tip over as you're putting the buttercream in, and it even has spaces for your piping tips when you're not using them.
To work with buttercream, you need buttercream to work with...
We sell a few different types of buttercream here at LCS. Let's start with the ready to use options:
OTT: Over The Top Buttercream is probably our best selling brand. It comes in a variety of colours in a 425g tub, or in white only in a bulk 1.7kg tub. It is made on a base of vegetable shortening, which means that it holds up better in the heat, and is suitable for vegetarians. It will form a crust when left out in the air.
Gloss Frost: is one of the newer kids on the block in regards to pre-made buttercream. Whereas the OTT is more like American Buttercream, Gloss Frost is more similar to a meringue buttercream in that it stays soft and doesn't form a crust. It is suitable for vegetarians and vegans.
Silky Smooth: similar to Gloss Frost, Silky Smooth won't form a crust and is a very smooth, pipe-able icing. It is halal and vegan.
All the above buttercreams are made with vegetable fat, which makes them stable, but vegetable fat is not as delicious as butter, so if you'd like to make your own silky soft buttercream using butter, try Cake Cream. It is a powder to which you add butter and water, whip it up for a few minutes, and voila! You have Swiss Meringue Buttercream! It tastes delicious, and even though it's made with butter, the egg white in there gives it stability and it holds up surprisingly well in hot weather. It's not suitable for vegans but you can make it dairy free by using shortening instead of butter.
