You’ve seen them on TV whipping up cakes, cupcakes, and other sweet treats to perfection. Now, some of America’s hottest celebrity bakers are sharing their best baking tips and tricks with you. With their simple techniques and expert advice, you’ll be baking like a pro in no time!

Candace Nelson

Photo courtesy of Sprinkles Cupcakes

• Bake with ingredients you are proud of. Pick up fresh strawberries from your local farmers’ market, blend in fresh dairy, and find a specialty market that sells real chocolate sprinkles rather than the waxy supermarket staple.
• Salt is often underrated in baking, but it is key. When used in proper quantities, salt can truly bring out the flavor in a sweet dessert. I love using a high quality fleur de del.
• When it comes to decorating cupcakes, my favorite tool is the offset spatula. It gives me great control over the blade and is ideal for creating that famous, handcrafted Sprinkles swirl!

Candace Nelson is the founder and pastry chef of Sprinkles Cupcakes, the world’s first cupcake bakery, and is a judge on Food Network’s hit show Cupcake Wars.

Duff Goldman

Photo courtesy of Charm City Cakes

• To ice a perfectly smooth cake, I like to use a taping knife used for drywall, which costs like 79 cents at Home Depot. The straight edge and long handle allow me to nicely spread the icing on a tall cake with full control.
• Before piping icing onto a cake, “burp” your piping bag to get out any air bubbles.
• Place eggs in a bowl of room temperature water prior to mixing with other ingredients. This way, they will whip up fluffier and with more volume.

Duff Goldman is the Chef/Owner of Charm City Cakes in Baltimore, which was featured on Food Network’s Ace of Cakes, and Charm City Cakes West and Cakemix in Los Angeles.

Buddy Valastro

• Something that happens more often than you’d think is forgetting to grease the cake pan!
• People always ask me how our cakes at the bakery end up so moist. The secret is adding custard to the batter. I have a great, easy recipe for it in my cookbooks, and I’ve included it in my Cake Boss Cake Mixes.
• The middle rack yields the best results when baking a cake. I’ve heard some people say that they don’t want to burn the bottom of the cake, so they bake on the top rack, but that’ll just burn the top of the cake!

Baker and cake decorator Buddy Valastro is the star of TLC’s Cake Boss, which takes place at his family’s business, Carlo’s Bake Shop, in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Johnny Iuzzini

Photo courtesy of Shannon Sturgis Photography

• I am a firm believer in working with weight vs. volume. This means investing in a digital scale and working with grams. If you want to be as precise as possible and be consistent from batch to batch, then it is essential to weigh your ingredients vs. using cup measurements.
• Clean as you go. An uncluttered and clean workspace is an organized and efficient one.
• I am a big advocate of making sure you read a recipe from start to finish before you begin. Make sure you have all the necessary ingredients and equipment.

Award-winning executive pastry chef Johnny Iuzzini served as the head judge on Bravo’s Top Chef: Just Desserts and is the author of Dessert FourPlay: Sweet Quartets From A Four-Star Pastry Chef.

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