Why this palette knife earns its place
A palette knife has no cutting edge, and that is the whole point of it. The blade is long, flat and blunt, and it flexes, so it lays down an even film of whatever is on it — buttercream across a sponge, mayonnaise down a row of sandwich bases, a filling smoothed level in a tray — instead of dragging and tearing at what is underneath. Turned on its side it becomes a lifter: it slides under a biscuit, a fillet or a plated garnish and takes the weight across the whole blade so the thing arrives in one piece. At 8 inches you have enough blade to cross a cake or level a tray in one sweep, which is the difference between a smooth finish and a patchwork of overlapping passes.
The white handle puts it in the colour-coded system, and in the scheme most UK kitchens run, white belongs to bakery and dairy work. That is the natural home for this blade anyway, and having it marked keeps it from wandering onto raw work and back. The stainless steel blade takes contact with warm mixes and hot trays without staining or picking up flavours from the last job, though the handle wants keeping off a live burner. Wash and dry it as soon as the section is finished with it — icing and set fats are easy to clean off a blade straight away and a nuisance once they have hardened around the joint where blade meets handle.
