Do You Know What This Is? The answer.
Posted by Heather MacAllister in Heather MacAllister, tags: cake decorating, Heather MacAllister, tala, vintage icing syringe, vintage kitchenware
Guess what this is? 
Check back in a few hours to see if you’re right!
This is a Tala icing syringe. It belonged to my grandmother and I actually used it to make the incredibly complex, but oh, so delicious Harry Potter Butter Beer cupcakes for Christmas. The recipe requires a squeeze bottle, which I didn’t have, so I figured I use a narrow tip on a cookie press, also acquired from my grandmother. But I found this old icing syringe stored with the press. It worked, but just how old is the thing? 
The instruction booklet says that Tala is the Taylor, Law & Co. Ltd, in Stourbridge, England. They’re still in business and make a retro line of cake decorating tools. When I checked out their website, the ’50s vintage tool has plastic on the handle (which would have been nice, let me tell you). This one predates that. There’s a New York address in the booklet and it uses the old zones mailing code that the USPS started using in 1943. So this was made sometime after 1943, but before the end of the fifties.
I’m not known for my icing skills and I don’t recall my mother or grandmother making elaborately decorated cakes and cookies, either. Frankly, it hurts your fingers to use that thing, which is why Tala added the plastic padding. And, also, probably why it hadn’t been used in fifty or so years.
I’m curious to know if anyone uses modern Tala cake decorating tools. I see them on Amazon and the design hasn’t changed much. Are many of you cake and cookie decorators or do you leave it to the pros?
Entries (RSS)
Two things came to mind when I first saw this and they were from the opposite ends of the spectrum. A cake decorator or a grease gun! I know – how did I get that! Just how my mind thinks!
Do you remember the deleted scene from the Wizard of Oz where they dance the jitterbug? Dorothy has a giant bug spray thing and that’s what I thought of when I saw this.
Cake decorator. I didn’t look at the other answers because I wanted to guess.
I’d bet on the cake decorator, too.
Yes! Now I’ll put up the rest of the post.
You use it to put icing on a cake. It looks a little like a cookie press my grandmother had when I was a child.
Patsy, I thought it was a baby cookie press. I always grabbed the big one when we made spritz cookies.
I bought one very similar to this for myself back in the early 70s with the intent of making gloriously decorated cakes and cookies. Like Bart Simpson, I just assumed I could do it.
Every year, I think I’ve miraculously acquired icing skills. Why, I don’t know. Then I give up and sprinkle red and green sugar on everything.
I have used the decorative bits on cupcakes, cookies, & cakes, but I am no professional… sometimes just like to fancy things up.
I was impressed with all the specialty tips. There are different shapes for different types of flowers. Dahlia, sweet pea, clematis . . . there doesn’t seem to be one for the blob flower.
At first I thought grease gun but I wasn’t sure so I went to the kitchen and had one of your delicious scones (yes, only one. My self-discipline is awesome) and when I came back to the computer I decided I didn’t give a flip what it was as long as you keep making me scones.
How lucky that I don’t need to decorate them!
My mom had a simpler version a icing decorator that she used all the time. Now I’m wondering where it is. My brother owns my parents house now so will have to see if it’s still around.
I’ll bet she has a lot of the tips. Mine had been living in the back of the cabinet with all the cookie cutters that I drag out once a year.
I guessed correctly.
I was surprised how many knew what it was. Then again, the design hasn’t changed much.
My Mother has this model I’d say & it would be post WWII. She still uses it to decorate cakes. As a child I watched her ice & decorate umpteen fruit cakes for weddings, birthdays & Christmas. Intricate lacework etc. She has a very steady hand.
Fruit cakes tells me you’re British.
Your mother must have a tough hand, too! I had a big purple mark on my thumb from the plunger. Decorating with icing is an art.
I think you’re right about post WWII. I’m guessing very early fifties.
Australian