I have used powdered egg whites in place of meringue powder in royal icing. It works fine.

We do have one shop in Paris - the only one in the whole of France - that sells Wilton products and I did see a can of meringue poweder in there. It costs about 18$. I will perhaps have a look at that. If it does have cream of tartar, then, my problem might be solved.

Why don't you just use egg whites, a bit of lemon juice and a 1/4 teas. cream of tartar?? That's what I do and I've never had a problem with it.

Cheap, and you can get all those ingredients right in your local supermarket.

Works for me!

OK, Momkiksbutt. You are confirming what someone told me before but what do you call "teas"?

teaspoon....sorry for the confusion! LOL

Yup...the real stuff is most often cheaper and works just great!!

I love this thread there are somany good ideas

OK, who knows if this tip will help anyone, but when I am stacking cakes I cut out cake circles using old cereal boxes. Then instead of dowels I use sucker sticks (the ones you can buy for about $3 for 100 or so). I am in Germany now and really miss $1 stores and Wal-Mart and I am limited to what I can do, so I make due with what I have.

To make a yummy Chocolate Buttercream, I make a regular Buttercream recipe then I add 1 tub of Pillsbury Dark Chocolate Fudge frosting to the mix. It is SO YUMMY! And it is very cheap to make. Especially when supplies are hard to come by.

I also use wood carving tools for my fondant and cheap cookie cutters.

To make a fun design around the side of the cake, I use a child's comb (the edges aren't as sharp) or a hair pick.

Keep the ideas coming. For those of us stationed outside the US, these ideas ar SO helpful!

I find really cheap cake stuff at garage sales!! The other day I went to one and they had Wilton stuff still in boxes never been used for pennies on the dollar.

I use Duncan Hines dark chocolate fudge frosting for all my blacks. I outline everything with it. I fill in anything black with it; but you cannot make stars with it; it has to be a smooth fill-in. It is so dark that it looks black and it's more tasty and less time-consuming than making black. Check out my pictures and see the black panther and the ninja ... everything black on all my cakes is done in DH.

I wish I had something to share. What fabulous suggestions! Thanks to all of you!

AL chapter of ICES day of sharing had these ideas:

1. use a make up sponge for applying dust
2.trace designs on tranparency paper with non toxic paint to make own impression tools
3. measure and mark the diameter of your pans on a ribbion so you don't have to remeasure every time.
4. use the lid of a small to plactic togo container (the one that fits over a plate) of a mold for chocolate disks. it gives a nice design.

I keep posting things as I think of them and I just thought of this one.....I use a new nylon stocking or knee hi stocking and fill it with powdered sugar and tie the top so the sugar doesn't escape. Now when I roll out MMF, fondant or gumpaste if I need a little bit of powdered sugar I use this "tool" to get a light dusting of powdered sugar. Works great and it was so cheap to make!! Thanks again for all the great tips!!

Instead of buying all the different letter press sets you can just print off your message off the computer and then trace it onto parchment or waxed paper then use the piping gel or toothpick method to transfer the writing to the cake. Or even better make it into a frozen buttercream or chocolate transfer.

This was on another post I just saw the other day, but I thought I would add the idea to this one as well

Here I finally thought of something, maybe. When I buy coffee I buy the big plastic containers and save them. If you put 1tbs of bleach in a gallon of cool water and than into the coffee container and let it sit for about 30 minutes but as you pass it give it a swirl. You than can reuse this can for whatever. Here is the link I got the info from.
http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf78942252.tip.html

fabulous tip with the 3" strips of old towel! my hubby just told me the other day why cakes rise up in the middle, but we didn't know how to correct it! (i also had NO CLUE how those bake even strips worked - or even what they were for that matter!)

i'll have to read the rest of this thread to find some more excellent tips!

thanks ladies! (i'm VERY green at this - but LOVE IT!)

I have used dental floss to level, split and cut cakes. That was before my sister was nice enough to buy me a leveler. And I've made my own decorating edge, from an old pop bottle. Something like a decorating triangle.

This is something that I just thought about but not really sure if it'll work but here goes

How about using some kind of line like thin fishing line, attatching each end to a pieces of dowel and then using it as a cake leveler. You could probably make makes on the dowel so you can use it to cut your layers as well...

Just a thought...

Put your dirty icing tips in a microwave-safe bowl with a little dish detergent and cover with water. Microwave for 10-15 seconds. The tips come clean every time and you don't have to buy special tools to clean them or lose them in the dishwasher. It won't hurt your microwave if you make sure all the tips are under water.

I don't know if this counts but I go to a surplus store. I live in Ontario Canada and at KW Surplus or Cambridge Surplus they have Wilton supplies dirt cheap. I got a large bottle of Cake Release for $3.00 CAN. Plus they have pans and things like that there for a buck. It's great.

I also make my own cookie cutters following the instructions on this site. It is a cheap alternative and you can make anything you want.

when printing coloring pages for fbct, print them on a transparency rather than paper, then you can turn it either way depending on your design.

Thank you all for the great ideas! Maybe someone can help me with this... I am making my first big cake (5 tiers). Should I use pvc pipe in the middle through each tier to prevent it from falling? If so, should I drill (the pipe has a hole in the middle)?

Thanks a bunch!

instead of buying the plastic U-shaped flower formers, I save the cardboard core from my paper towels, cut them in half and I have two U-shaped flower formers. Once I make the flower on the nail, I transfer the square of wax paper with the flower on it to this former (for those who were concerned about sanitizing cardboard). I had a lot of flowers to make recently and I pulled my Christmas paper collection out of storage, found some rolls that didn't have much paper on it. Removed the paper (folded it and put itback in the box) and made me 2 formers that were 3 feet long!

My very best friend who owned the cake supply store way back when told me this trick instead of letting me spend the money in her store for the plastic ones!

rocketgirt96-Thanks for starting this discussion! I'm rather new to cake decorating myself and all these tips help so much! I've learned soo much from everyone on CC. Thanks Everyone!! rocketgirl96, I also have the expensive hobby of rubber stamping. I'm always trying to think of ways to incorporate some of the neat tools I already have for that into cake decorating (food safe, of course). I'll let you know what I come up with!

I wanted to all that my husband and I also watch clearance racks. Never know what you'll find. He especially loves a good sale. For instance, he bought about 4 dozen plastic squirt bottles like you use for mustard and ketchup (2 doz. clear, 1 doz.yellow and 1 doz. red) at Sam's last year for next to nothing. "Well, you can use them for something". Huh? 4 dozen? Hey, found outa couple of weeks ago that they work great for filling chocolate molds for oreos. So, I guess he was right....but 4Dozen????

Ok, here are my tips:

1. You can use long and narrow drinking glasses to cut the tower shapes for castle cakes.
2. You can use the lid of a marker ro make cute flower designs on the fondant or, wall pattern on a castle if you don't have impression mats.
3. when you make Christmas trees out of fondant, make a cone and cut in several places with the scissors.
4. Make your own stencils from folders.
http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=418803

5. Make your own cookie cutters from cardboard.
http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=514893

Girls, I love this thread. Keep going.

I hope I can attach an imagine with some of the tips I mentioned. I used play dough because I don't have fondant in my fridge right now.

I grated some chalk and used it as luster dust on my roses yesterday. I mixed colors and changed my mono-colored roses look beautiful! Paired w/ a little paing on the edges... I think they turned out wonderful, and lots cheaper than buying luster dust.

If you don't want to go through wrapping your pans with wetted towel strips you can just bake as normal and as soon as the cake comes out of the oven you can lay a clean towel over it and press the top ofthe cake down, just press until the top is level. I have to use my leveler for maybe 1 out of 5 cakes now instead of all of them. this also makes the cake a little more dense but not too dense and allows it to hold up better when doing tiered cakes. I do this and it seems to make for a lovely medium dense and VERY TASTY cake, my neighbor makes me bake her at least 1 cake a month LOL