My mom made beautiful, decorated cakes. She also took classes with some of the other ladies in the neighborhood. I can't remember where those classes were held. I just remember she had a number of different types of cake pans but nothing really special, just different sized round ones, a Bundt pan, rectangles and square pans. For tools, she mostly just used the normal kitchen stuff except she did have one flexible long thin metal spatula that she used for frosting. Also, those frosting bags and tips. I mostly remember the frostings she made, not what she did with them so much. Basic butter cream, some sort of frosting that started out with cooking flour and butter together? Anyway, it was sticky, and I can't Remember what else she did with it but it tasted nummy on angel food cake served with fresh berries. And her fudge frosting was a real hit. It started out by boiling on the stove, then one of us kids would be assigned to beat it until cool. Sometimes we were sent outside in the winter with the pan of hot frosting and told to set the bottom of the pan in the snow and keep beating so it would cool faster if she was in a hurry. A favorite treat was that left over frosting spread on saltine crackers. So nummy!