Also known as a palette or icing knife, this tool is indispensable for the pastry chef or home baker. The shape can be straight or offset, but the latter offers more control. Use an offset spatula for smoothing génoise batter in a pan, finessing tart filling, manipulating melted chocolate on a marble board, or nudging icing to the edge of a cake. Offset spatulas can also aid in lifting cake tiers, cookies, meringues, pancakes, and crêpes out of the pan. And these spatulas are good for leveling flour in measuring cups or releasing baked goods from the sides of pans. It’s helpful to have two sizes: 9 1/2 to 12 inches (to adequately cover most American-style cakes), and four to five inches (for fine decorative work on cupcakes, petit fours, tartlets, and cookies).
(9 1/2" Ateco offset spatula, $5.69; bridgekitchenware.com)
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