Someone posted a thread on here about some beautiful writing someone had done on a cake and wondered what it was made of and what utensil the maker used. Sorry I can't remember the actual thread so I am posting this here. Most responders thought it was written with melted chocolate and put in a parchmnet bag with a tiny slit cut out.
Well....I was thinking about this quite a bit last night and thought I would pass an artists tool onto you. Now remember, I am NOT a cake decorator, I am primarly an artis who wants to learn to make a wonderful cake for my daughters wedding. I am extremely new to this and I am not sure if it would work or not but here are my thoughts.
When painting with enamels, and particularly writing with them it is very dificult with a brush to get very fine lines. Peobe (sp?) has a tool to assist artists with this. It is simply a very small bottle with two types of metal "nibs", one is so tiny it looks similar to a needle.
It may be possible for you to put your icing, very thinned of course, into the bottle and use these nibs for your writing. The nibs being metal could be cleaned well for hygenic reasons.
I have no idea if it would work or not. You people have all be so very helpful to me with my endevors I just thought I would pass this along. I guess I feel I get so much from you and this site and I have nothing to offer. Perhaps this tool may help some of you.

that was me that posted the threat .... can you get me a link of a picture of what you are talking about??

Glad you saw this!! I will dig mine out and take a pic of what it is. Will post it as soon as possible

Wow! What a great idea. I used to have one of those bottles. I forget what hobby I was using it for...wish I could remember. I do remember that I had chalk dust in it and it was used for blowing fine lines of chalk on something or other. I can NOT remember what I was using it for but I do know I got it at the art supply. I think it would work GREAT. Of course, you'd have to have beautiful handwriting. That blows it for me, right there!

I'd be interested in trying it out. Just to see if it works for me. Thanks!

I remembered!

QUILTING! It was quilting! And I didn't get it at the art supply, I got it at the quilting store. It was really cheap. You put chalk dust in it and mark your quilting design on the quilt top. Should be available online at many quilting supplies. Wonder if I've still got that thing out there somewhere.....

The quilting one just has one needle-like nib, but I think it would work great.

Another tip to get your writing level on the cake is to use a battery operated laser level. (I just discovered that tip a couple of weeks ago!)

Okay here are the photo's of the tool I was talking about. This tool won't keep your work level etc. It is more to get a very fine line like in the cakes that were posted. You would have to have very very thin chocolate or frosting to use this tool. As I said in my first post, this tool is used for very fine detailed painting. That is the original use of it, I just thought it might help.
Including a photo with my finger so you can see how tiny the nibs are.

Yes I use those tips for painting, I have also used them for gluing small projects. I don't know if they would be any better than the cake decorating tips but worth a try. When I need to write on a cake I make a print out on the computer using Publisher and print in reverse. Place wax paper over it and copy using piping gel. Put it on your cake and lightly touch with dry brush then remove your wax paper. You can then follow your writing with icing. Another way is to pin prick your lettering onto the cake then follow the holes left by the pin marks.

Taigen
thank you so much ... I have company this weekend so I can't go on the hunt for the tool.... but I'll let you know if this works .... if it doesn't ... you at least gave me the idea to look for answers in other places rather than cake decorating only

How big is the opening on the end? Is it about the same size as the Wilton tip 1 or tip 2, or is it smaller than those?

I use the squeezit bottles from Sugarcraft, and they have a ring to hold the Wilton tips, so I can have the convenience and control of using the bottle, but can use whatever tip I need to for writing or doing detail work on my cookies.

THanks!
Laura.

I would say the opening is a size 1 or can be smaller depending which tip you use. The bottle came with many tips at least the kit that I bought.

Just a thought about what I have been doing. I melted chocolate and put it into a parchment piping bag with the smallest hole I could do, not much bigger than a needle. I took a piece of scotch tape and wrapped it around the tip to keep it from getting larger as this seemed to be happening as I continued to use the bag due to the dampness of the chocolate. The tip stayed small and even and it worked really well.

That sounds like a good idea, I'll have to give it a try.