Our local cake decorating club had a meeting all about making tools. One member demostrated how you do not need to purchase expensive embossing mats or rolling pins (like the Wilton spiral one) for fondant icing. You can find all sorts of textured items around the house. Either press into or onto icing, or roll icing over it, using a regular rolling pin.
The green plastic pot scrubbers (the flat ones) make great designs.

Also on the playdoh toys, there are many sets that contain textured rolling pins or moulds, that if they were labelled as cake tools would be 5x the price. I check the playdoh sets regularly, they are always bringing out new ones.

Oh, I forgot to mention...

If you are making a doll cake (particularly for family), use a Barbie or Barbie imitation, and undress the doll. Wrap body up to waist or so in saran wrap, use a small angel food cake pan, bake cake and one cupcake. You may need to carve it a little to shape it up, or add the cupcake (halved) to build it up to the waist. Insert doll in cake and decorate. Bring the doll clothes to the party and give the Barbie, the cake, and the clothes as a gift. The Barbie will be uniquely gift wrapped!

Wow what a great thread here's something I like to do when I have a cookie bouquet with large or heavy cookies I prefer to use the wooden coffee sticks that are at the dollar store they are 80 for $1 for the long ones and I can cut them down to dif lenghts so I have different heights. I also cant live without my sponge roller (melvira method) I also found at a houselhold store these little measuring spoons for $2. (smidgen, pinch, dash) I use them for my spices and for my sprinkles as sometimes the reg spoon dosent fit in the bottle also I have better control when I'm sprinkling a small cookie or area. Also when I'm making individually wrapped cookies I buy a large post sized pice of cardboard from the dollar store to put behind the cookie for better support before I bag them and I can color coordinate the cardboard with my cookie theme.

OOOPs sorry that was poster sized cardboard that I can cut to match the size of my cookie lol for better support especially if I have to carry them far.

Well, I don´t know if this qualifies as a substitute but it sure is cheaper... I like to use dragees on my cakes and cookies, and they can be expensive, I believe a 4 oz bottle is about $10-20, well, I found a great lady on eBay that sells them really cheap. She also sells lollipop sticks and cello bags at great prices.

Here is a link

http://stores.ebay.com/C-C-Candies

I always check ebay for great deals and please, before you bid or buy now, check the feedback. I recommend CC Candies!

Hope this helps.

I just wanted to add another thing that I tried for the first time last night and I love it!!! I used one of those plastic needlepoint grids and rolled it over my fondant sheet. It made the cutest texture!! I am going to use it for a lot of things. The sheet I bought is huge (2 feet by 3 feet or so) so I can use it to texture the whole cake if I wanted to without having to move it around. And the best part is that it came from Walmart and it was less than $2.00!!! It is awesome!

Someone already mentioned using casserole dishes to make different shapes cakes; I'm wondering if you can do that with oven safe bowls as well?

Accidently I figured out that a splatter screen works great for a sifter. I have a smaller one that is used for bowl sifting, and a huge one I put directly on top of the mixer bowl. I use them in the sink so any spill over goes right down the drain. Goes pretty fast too.

After paying small fortunes for books and shipping on Ebay, I remembered half.com and Amazon used books. They don't always have what you want-but their prices are usually pretty good. It's a great way for us beginners to catch up.

I love threads like this one!! Ok, here's my tip....
Instead of buying the expensive "Make Your Own Molds" stuff from the cake vendors go to Hobby Lobby with your 40% off coupon and get the Amazing Molding Putty. It's in the clay aisle. You can make a mold of anything, buttons, pins, earrings, etc... I've found myself wondering around my house going"What can I make a mold of to use on a cake"!! Also, these molds last for a long time, I have one that's 2 yr old and it's like I made it yesterday.
Also, while you're in the clay aisle get one of their very inexpensive ($5-$7)clay extruders. Their silver and come with several different disks to make different shapes from.
Happy Decorating
Carrie

this thread needs to go on forever. How can this become permenant?

Carrie, I bought one of those clay extracter guns and they are almost impossible to extract any fondant from them. I was hoping it would work out so I wouldn't have to buy a larger clay gun but it didn't work. I've been using the playdough thingy.

Julie

What do you use a clay gun or extracter for?

Natt

I read a tip on here somewhere that the Dollar Tree had paper embossers that were used for scrapbooking. The tip said that you could take the rollers out of the little tool and use the rollers like a mini rolling pin for embossing fondant. I picked up a few and they are only $1 each. They have lots of different designs.

Thanks to the person on CC who posted this idea orginally. I'm just passing it along

Here's that post about the embossers. It has pics.

http://forum.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=204361&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=0

you use the clay gun for fondant ropes - used for hair on figures, trim, borders for cakes, etc.

I can't use the Wilton fondant, it's too tough, but the Satin Ice fondant works great!! It's more pliable than some of them out there!!
Carrie

This thread is great! Thank you for starting this. I used disposal chopstick as dowels for my tier cakes. At times I cut out styrofoam to the desire shape (cover it with alum foil) and use it as my cake board. Use cookie cutter to cut out fondant shape.

I'm interested on play dough extruder, can someone please post a picture of it? Thanks.

I use MMF

This is a great post. Thanks for all the ideas.
All of your suggestions are great for items we already have in the kitchen - kind of double usage tools, the kind that Alton Brown would be proud of!

When I took my fondant class, my teacher suggested we use an onion bag around your rolling pin for a different pattern. They are great, you can wash them, cut them and stretch them.

Good Luck

Instead of Bake-Even Strips, I have always cut strips of old (clean) bathtowels and then dampen them and use a large safety pin to fasten them around my cake pans. Always works great and if they get frayed, just cut up another old towel.

I have had lots of trouble in finding cream of tartar here in France and now that I know where to get it from, it costs a fortune. One of the shops I know charges as much as 15$ for 100g!!

I've been told to use a few drops of lemon or white vineger instead. Can anyone confirm this information?

Thanks for the answers.
I wanted cream of tartar for the buttercream recipe I found on this site. It does not take baking powder.
I presume I will have to handle the ridiculous cost of buying this over here.

you might try using meringue powder instead if it is cheaper ( I can't imagine that it is!) I believe that it has cream of tarter in it. Maybe it would serve the same purpose. Not sure!?!?!? Good luck.

at price chopper, a local grocery store, there is a "egg white" powder in a can which looks similar to meringue powder. Does anyone know if it is the same thing?

Beth