The best cake decorating tools you can buy

With the right tools, you can use the same cake decorating techniques that the professionals use, right in your home kitchen.
The Emopeak 110 Piece Cake Decorating Supplies Kit includes all of the essentials that amateur cakemakers need to get started, all at an affordable price.

Cake decorating is all the rage at the moment, with shows like "Extreme Cakes," "Cake Boss," and "Ace of Cakes" and demonstrating the incredible looks that both pro and amateur bakers manage to pull off (except for contestants on "Nailed It"). Now, there’s pressure to pull off stunning wedding cakes, birthday cakes, anniversary cakes, and cakes for just about any other occasion. The use of fondant, spray-on food coloring, stencils, and more allows decorators to include great amounts of detail in their designs, and ultimately your imagination truly is the limit when it comes to decorating cakes.

Memorable birthday cakes have always been a part of my childhood. My mom baked all of the cakes for my brother’s and my birthdays, and though it’s been more than 20 years since she made some of those cakes, I still remember them well. My mother piped and frosted some amazing cakes, and while I inherited her love of baking, I didn’t inherit her decorating talents.

Luckily, I’ve discovered a variety of tools that can help. While I’ll never be the talented freehand piper that my mom is, with some of these tools, I can do a halfway decent job decorating a cake. These tools aren’t top-of-the-line and they’re not intended for professional bakers. They do allow home bakers to use some of the same techniques that the professionals use, expanding their options in how they approach each cake.

If you enjoy baking for friends and family and are looking to improve your cake decorating techniques and skills and even show off a little bit, these tools can help.

Here are our top picks for the best cake decorating tools in 2019:

Best overall: Emopeak 110 Piece Cake Decorating Supplies Kit
Best for creating icing flowers: Russian Piping Tips Kit
Best for fondant work: Fondant Cake Decorating 27 Piece Kit
Best for airbrushing: PointZero Cake Airbrush Decorating Kit
Best cake stencil: HULISEN 7 Piece Cake Decorating Stencil

Keep scrolling to read more about our top picks.

The best overall

Amazon

The Emopeak 110 Piece Cake Decorating Supplies Kit includes all of the basics you need to get started in cake decorating.

With the Emopeak 110 Piece Cake Decorating Supplies Kit, you’ll have all of your basics covered. This is the kind of kit you need when you get into cake decorating since it will keep you from getting halfway before realizing you’re missing an important tool. Plus, this kit is very reasonably priced and will save you money over what you’d pay if you purchased these supplies individually.

The kit comes with essentials like a turntable, 48 stainless-steel icing tips, two reusable pastry bags, a cake brush, a cake cutter, a cake pen, three cake scrapers, 25 disposable pastry bags, and more. In case you need some ideas, your purchase of this kit also includes an e-book of decorating techniques to get you inspired.

While the tools aren’t the top-quality versions you’d find in a professional kitchen, they’re functional and easy to use, and they’re more than enough for a home or beginning cake maker. You might purchase this kit, discover which tools you use the most, and then choose to upgrade those if you’re seriously getting into decorating.

The Emopeak 110 Piece Cake Decorating Supplies Kit has a 4.6 out of 5-star Amazon rating, based on 178 reviews. One customer was very impressed with the quality this kit offers: "I don’t know a lot about pastry cutters but this has to be one of the best deals (price vs. quality) that I have seen lately. Compared to the one that I saw at the box store for more than double the price, there is no contest. This is a much higher quality product."

Pros: Large variety of tools, excellent value, kit includes storage box to keep supplies organized

Cons: E-book would be easier to use as a printed book, tools aren’t of the highest quality

Buy the Emopeak 110 Piece Cake Decorating Supplies Kit on Amazon for $19.98

The best for creating icing flowers

Amazon

The Russian Piping Tips Kit makes piping icing flowers both easy and fast, ideal for decorating floral-themed cakes.

No cake is complete without some icing flowers, but these flowers are also one of the most difficult (and time-consuming) cake decorating techniques to master. Piping flowers is often done one petal at a time, but the Russian Piping Tips Kit simplifies and speeds up the process. Rather than piping petal by petal, this kit includes an assortment of 12 tips that create different flower designs in a single motion for instant results.

The kit has everything that you need to get started. A tri-color coupler allows you to create multi-colored flowers, while the single color coupler makes it easy to quickly change bags (and colors), which is particularly helpful when you’re working on an intricate cake. The 10 disposable bags offer no-mess convenience, but for an eco-friendly option, this kit also includes a dishwasher-safe reusable silicone bag. Additionally, with the purchase of this kit, you’ll receive an e-book of decorating ideas for inspiration. You can also access online videos to help you master piping techniques.

The Russian Piping Tips Kit has a 4.7 out of 5-star Amazon rating, based on more than 2,600 customer reviews. One customer wrote: "I got these for my sister and she absolutely loves them, she made a cake on Sunday and decorated it using these nozzles and you could not tell that it was baked at home, it looked like it was baked by a professional baker."

Another Amazon customer also likes this kit and has some tips for success: "Just be sure to follow the instructions. Clean and dry your tips well, use a stiffer buttercream, and regularly wipe excess frosting off the nozzle so the formations keep their shape."

Pros: Tips are made of stainless steel for durability, gift box keeps kit neatly contained, excellent assortment of tips for various decorating options

Cons: E-book would be more helpful if sent as a hard copy book

Buy the Russian Piping Tips Kit on Amazon for $15.99

The best for fondant work

Amazon

The Fondant Cake Decorating 27 Piece Kit features a great assortment of tools to help you get the most out of your fondant work.

When working with fondant, you need the right instruments to truly master the medium. The Fondant Cake Decorating 27 Piece Kit offers an impressive assortment of tools that will give you plenty of options for your fondant work. Ball tools of various sizes are perfect for shaping fondant and creating flower petals, while double-ended tools offer precision perfect for texture and detail work.

These tools are made of stainless steel, plastic, and wood for maximum durability. The tools that feature metal and wooden handles have a much nicer, higher-quality feel to them than the all-plastic tools that you’ll find in some other kits. The fully plastic tools in this kit are lightweight and ideal for detail work without causing your hand to fatigue. For its price, this kit is an excellent value.

The Fondant Cake Decorating 27 Piece Kit has a 4.6 out of 5-star Amazon rating, based on 18 reviews. One customer appreciates the versatility this kit offers: "This set of tools will come in handy not only for fondant-work but will also be perfect for sculpting with polymer clay. I enjoy making miniature foodstuffs for tiny dollhouse. These cost much less than the same thing listed as clay-sculpting tools, so are a bargain!"

Pros: Excellent assortment of tools, stainless steel and wood adds durability, great overall value for the kit

Cons: No grips or ergonomic contouring makes the tools a little uncomfortable for long periods of use

Buy the Fondant Cake Decorating 27 Piece Kit on Amazon for $13.66

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