Zoe Clark - Chic & Unique Wedding Cakes - Lace: An elegant cake decorating project

The following basic tools are essential for baking the cakes in this book. It is important to have all your tools and equipment to hand before you start baking.

• Large electric mixer for making cakes, buttercream (frosting) and royal icing
• Kitchen scales for weighing out ingredients
• Measuring Spoons for measuring small quantities
• Mixing Bowls for mixing ingredients
• Spatulas for mixing and gently folding together cake mixes
• Cake tins for baking cakes
• Tartlet tins and/or muffin trays for baking cupcakes
• Baking trays for baking cookies
• Wire racks for cooling cakes and icing fondant fancies

• Greaseproof (wax) paper or baking parchment for lining tins and to use under icing during preparation
• Clingfilm (plastic wrap) for covering icing to prevent drying out and for wrapping cookie dough
• Large non-stick board to put icing on when rollingit out
• Non-slip mat to put under the board so that it doesnt slip on the work surface
• Large and small non-stick rolling pins for rolling out icing and marzipan
• Large and small sharp knife for cutting and shaping icing
• Large serrated knife for carving and sculpting cakes
• Cake leveller for cutting even, level layers of sponge
• Cake card is a special card, thinner than a cake board, to which you can attach miniature cakes
• Large and small palette knife for applying buttercream (frosting) and ganache
• Icing or marzipan spacers to give a guide to the thickness of icing and marzipan when rolling out
• Icing smoothers for smoothing icing
• Spirit level for checking that cakes are level when stacking them
• Metal ruler for measuring different heights and lengths
• Cake scraper to scrape and smooth buttercream (frosting), ganache or royal icing, used in a similar way to a palette knife

• Hollow plastic dowels for assembling cakes
• Turntable for layering cakes
• Double-sided tape to attach ribbon around cakes, boards and pillars
• Piping (pastry) bags for royal icing decorations
• Piping tubes (tips) for piping royal icing
• Cocktail sticks (toothpicks) or cel sticks for colouring and curling icing
• Acetate or cellophane sheets for run-out icing decorations, or for covering icing if you are interrupted while working to keep it from drying out
• Edible glue for sticking icing to icing
• Edible pens for marking positioning guides
• Needle scriber for lightly scoring positioning guides and bursting bubbles in icing
• Cake-top marking template for finding/marking the centre of cakes and marking where dowels should be placedPastry brush for brushing sugar syrup and apricot masking spread or strained jam (jelly) on to cakes
• Fine paintbrushes for gluing and painting
• Dusting brushes for brushing edible dust on to icing
• Dipping fork for dipping fondant fancies in fondant icing
• Ball tool for frilling or thinning the edge of flower (petal/gum) paste
• Foam pad for softening and frilling flower (petal/gum) paste
• Frill cutters for cutting borders and pretty edges
• Blossom, petal and star plunger cutters for cutting blossoms, petals and stars
• Circle cutters for cutting circles of various sizes
• Shaped cutters for cutting out shapes such as leaves, diamonds, stars and wedding cakes

The gaps between the tiers mimic the dress by allowing the jagged icing to hang down below the edge of the cake. The rest of the design is created mainly by using the zigzag and castellated strip cutters, the stitching tool and a daisy cutter.

One 18cm (7in) round cake, one 23cm (9in) round cake and one 30cm (12in) round cake, each 10cm (4in) deep, prepared and iced in ivory sugarpaste (rolled fondant) at least 1224 hours in advance (see )

One 25cm (10in) round cake, 9cm (3in) deep

One 38cm (15in) round cake board, covered with ivory sugarpaste (rolled fondant) (see )

Half quantity of royal icing

600g (1lb 5oz) white flower (petal/gum) paste

Edible glue

Paste food colouring: brown

Sugar crystals

Two 10cm (4in) round cake boards

Two 20cm (8in) round cake boards

2.5cm (1in) ivory/bridal white satin ribbon

Double-sided tape

10 hollow pieces of dowel cut to size (see )

Zigzag and castellated strip cutters (FMM)

Stitching tool

Foam pad

Boning tool

Cutting wheel

Medium oak leaf cutter

Small and medium-sized daisy cutters

Small piping (pastry) bag and nos. 1 and 2 piping tubes (tips)

15mm (in) ivory/white, double-faced satin ribbon