How Did You Get Started in Cake Decorating?
Share your story about how the cake decorating bug bit you....
I took a cake decorating class with the Girl Scouts when I was 8. Since there were never any desserts in the house, I was baking every chance I got. Like many of you, I started with an Easy Bake oven. My first homemade cake was disgusting. I used safflower oil, because I didn't know any better. I remember my brother eating pure Crisco out of the can. He thought it was icing. My parents were on a health food kick, so there were never any sweets in the house. I guess it's a rebellious thing that I always have sweets in the house. My sister rebelled worse than I did. When I got stuck with her room, after I came back from college, every crack and crevice had a candy bar wrapper hidden in it ... in the radiator, between moulding, in the back of drawers. Now, when she comes over, by the time I tell her I have brownies in tin foil in the cabinet, she says, "I ate it already." She has sugar radar.
So, I'm happy to say I don't buy health food! It was all those little moths in the bins at the health food store that grossed me out!
I took a cake decorating class with the Girl Scouts when I was 8. Since there were never any desserts in the house, I was baking every chance I got. Like many of you, I started with an Easy Bake oven. My first homemade cake was disgusting. I used safflower oil, because I didn't know any better. I remember my brother eating pure Crisco out of the can. He thought it was icing. My parents were on a health food kick, so there were never any sweets in the house. I guess it's a rebellious thing that I always have sweets in the house. My sister rebelled worse than I did. When I got stuck with her room, after I came back from college, every crack and crevice had a candy bar wrapper hidden in it ... in the radiator, between moulding, in the back of drawers. Now, when she comes over, by the time I tell her I have brownies in tin foil in the cabinet, she says, "I ate it already." She has sugar radar.
So, I'm happy to say I don't buy health food! It was all those little moths in the bins at the health food store that grossed me out!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Ponder on
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I dont remember when I started doing cakes. I know I was preteen/early teen. I was always making cookies & cakes for everyones birthday. I made my first gingerbread house at 15 & my 2nd at 16, there both on here. My junior year of high school I went to the local Votec the 1st part of the day & made lunch for the students there, thats where I made my 2nd house the church. Then it seemed like anytime after that any thing I would make never turned out, cookies would burn & cakes never turned out like I wanted. So I had convinced my self that spending a school year at the Votec ruined me with baking. lol. So I quit baking & had forgotten about it for the most part, unless a friend asked me to make a cake. Which would only be about every 4-5 years. I did however make my 1st wedding cake for a friends cousin when I was 19, so not counting the last 3 months the last 20 years I have only made 4 cakes. What got me back into it was my neighbors daughter. She had bought a 2 tiered cake from Walmart & when she came home with it on a friday night, half of the icing had fallen off both cakes & the flowers were squised on the other side, & her wedding was the next afternoon & this was about 6pm when she got home with her cake. I took it out of the box & looked it over real good & kept looking back & forth from my husband to the cake & asked him, "should I tell her?" he said "its up to you" & I told her I could fix it no problem. Of course she was exstatic & upset. So she went back to town & got the ingredients for the icing while I scraped off all the icing & froze the cakes. Meanwhile I made up some roses from the old icing, just so she could see I knew what I was doing. She however picked up butter flavored crisco, so I told her "UUMM your cake will not be white" at this point she didnt care. She loved the practice roses I showed her & she went home. I however spent the next 6 hours (9pm-3am) redoing her cake. ( I should post the before pics of it) The next morning when I got the cake to her she loved it, she liked my design better than what she had actually paid for. So then her aunt suggested that I should start doing it at home on the side. They also asked me to do her father's 50th bday cake. They told me what they wanted & I went from there, that is the one with the graves & horses. So then I fell in love with my first passion all over again. I've always enjoyed (odd phrase) the stress of getting a cake done under pressure, especially my neighbors wedding cake. I loved every min of it. I have been wanting to quit my parttime job, so my husband gave me the "green light" to quit & run with my cakes. YAY!! Maybe thats why I'm kinda putting off getting started on my carved helicopter cake, seeing as how that & a wedding cake are both do tomorrow, looking forward to the stress? lol At least the cakes are cooked lol. Well thats pretty much how I got to where I am today with my cakes. I am self taught on everything I know how to do, the only class I have every taken was a fondant class this past Jan.
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Permalink Reply by Kathy Kmonk on
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I worked for Cookies by Design as a cookie decorator and wanted to learn how to make roses so I took the first Wilton course. I got hooked! The store where I worked closed in December so I have been making cakes to make extra money but I'm loving it so much I hope it turns into a new career for me.
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Permalink Reply by Julie on
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I took the Wilton Method Course abotu 3 years ago and got hooked and never looked back . Now I am an instructor and make cakes! Love it !
Julie
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Permalink Reply by Aimee Youngblood on
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I started baking around 7 with my great grandmother. I got a bunt pan, measuring cups, etc. including a cake tester that I still use today for Christmas when I was 8. I would just do different things for different family gatherings, etc. then almost 2 years ago, my boss turned 50 and my co-workers and I were looking for something different to do for him. We normally just ran up to Publix and picked up a small carrot cake for him every year, and I ran across the golf cart cake on Wilton's website. I don't even know how or why I was on the site. so I decided that I could do it, and I did. he was blown away.That was in June 08, and by September 08, I did my first wedding cake. I haven't taken any classes and have learned everything from hands on experience and from cake sites such as this and others. I took a little hiatus during my pregnancy last year just doing a couple here and there, and now back on track with feet running. My 5 year plan is to have a store front, hopefully more like a 2 year plan. I still work my full time job and do cakes at nights and on weekends.
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Permalink Reply by Melissa Friesz on
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I have always loved to bake and cook for as long as I can remember. I had a large family growing up so I got a lot of practice baking and cooking. I didn't start doing cakes though until last christmas. I have a friend in Texas who started taking the Wilton courses and she was having a great time and I was jealous. I said something to my husband about the things my friend was doing and that I was jealous of her...so what did my great, wonderful husband do? He got me a huge box of cake decorating essentials and extras and signed me up for classes as a Christmas gift. I was hooked from class one. I love it so much that I am now teaching the Wilton courses. I thank my husband and my friend for giving me this opportunity!
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Permalink Reply by melissa pappalardo on
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I was hired to be the early morning baker at a local supermarket. When I was about 1 month into the job, our sales manager called and had told us that the cake decorator for one of the stores in our district was arrested on her lunch break buying Heroin. He asked if I was interested. I jumped on it. I decorated for the last 10 years and I since left that job and now bake at home. The only downfall about the supermarket was that everyting was uniform and there was no creativity. Everyting came in already baked and frozen. We did have a signature whipped frosting which was to die for, but they gave me a stepping stone. I found my calling and am now enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu for this July........Oh and I wasn't joking about the girl being arrested on lunch. I know, real stupid! But her loss was my gain.
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Permalink Reply by jeri c on
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The most fond memories of my Grandmother were her gardening and baking. From the time I was very small I remember admiring her and hoping some day to be just like her. My mother never discouraged me in the kitchen. I remember making cookies, brownies and cakes from the time I could read a recipe. Mom would just tell me that any mess I made I had to clean up. My siblings LOVED it because we always had fresh baked goods in the house. When I got married I just took off with cooking and baking... that was waaaayyyy before any internet or cooking shows on TV. The good old Betty Crocker Cookbook was my mainstay. And I would invent my own recipes! And I had my Grandmother's recipes too. (She made the BEST devil's food cake and my brother & I used to get a piece from her and she'd always send us outside with our piece of cake on a napkin... we'd roll it up to look like dog poop and tell everyone we were eating poop!) Country Hicks... that's us! Anyway I bought this Wilton kit that was a Valentines Kit. It had 2 foil heart shaped pans, plastic tips and disposable bags and instructions on how to make the cake. I made it for my mom for mother's day then I found a store to order supplies from we live in a rural area... no shopping here. I used to make tons of b'day cakes wedding cakes etc and still have some of my original supplies 32 years later! I took several years off as I coached softball for 25 years and did not have as much time to bake so a few years ago got back into baking... last year I retired from softball and am loving just working at our middl school, and making cakes and gardening, and scrapbooking and sewing and the greatest joy is our 4 children and their spouses and our wonderful grandson! I have never taken any classes taught myself almost everything I know. I did invest in Sharon Z's Perfecting the art of Buttercream and Flawless Fondant about a year ago they are both excellent DVD's. I have always been a look at something and be able to figure it out person.
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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Carter on
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When I was in high school, our "Home Ec" classes were divided into two classes - Clothing and Foods. You could take 4 courses in each area. I took Clothing 1 and 2 and hated it! I took Foods 1-3 and absolutely LOVED it! That is where I learned the basics. We covered the "easy" tips and roses. I graduated before I could take the next course, where basket weave and the more difficult flowers were taught. And, of course, fondant was never mentioned way back then. So I got my start then, put it down for 19 years, and picked it up again this past February, when I made my youngest daughter's birthday cake (check out the Princess cake in my Confectionately Carter photo album). Since then, I've had at least one cake a week to do, and I'm loving every minute of it. I'm thinking about taking the Wilton classes - but I wonder if they would let me skip the first one at least, and maybe the second one??
I teach high school as my "real" job, but I joke and tell everyone that I want to be a baker/decorator when I grow up. :-)
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Permalink Reply by Melissa Webb on
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I grew up cooking and baking with my Mom. But there were never any written recipes everything was in her head. But I learned the basics of cooking and baking. Kept cooking and baking all my life. About 3 years ago I was talking to a girl I work with and she decorates cakes. She showed me some of her cakes and I was amazed. I asked questions, got on the internet did searches, bought books. I looked into taking a class, but the timing of the classes and schedules would never work out. I finally figured OK, I'm just going to try it. So I made my first "decorated" cake. My family thought it was amazing. Now I refer to it as the "Sad little cake". But from that point on, when I realized I could make buttercream, I was hooked and I haven't looked back. If I see it and I want to do it, I do. Still haven't managed to be able to work out the classes with family schedules, so I read, watch videos, buy dvds. I practice, I fail, I practice, I fail less, I practice more. I'm proud of what I can do and I'm happy with my cakes. It's just a hobby and that's all I every really wanted out of, something that I could say that I can do. My husband is the most supportive, when I say I'm going to the cake store he just says "Have Fun". I learn more by trying, and I've learned a lot in the past 2 years that way. I break a cake down into sections, and work on it in pieces, when I look at it like that, it's not as intimidating and I know I can do it.
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Permalink Reply by Kim Hamilton on
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I just started getting into cake decorating in January of this year. Two of my friends were having a joint 50th birthday party for themselves, and I wanted to do something special for them. I volunteered to do the cakes (the Browns/Colts and Coffee Cup cakes)...it was my first attempt at fondant work. I had baked before, but nothing fancy, and am pretty handy in the kitchen on savory dishes, but never really did anything special except for cheescakes. The cakes were the hit of the party - I even had a couple of people ask me to do cakes for them later in the year. I was hooked. I guess there is use for an art major somewhere in the real world. My day job is in accounting (which I love)...but for an art major, it's pretty non-creative (unless I want to get in trouble with the SEC, which I don't). I've finally found an outlet for my creativity that could possibly someday be profitable...for now, it's learn the trade and how to bake proper scratch cakes and the meringue butter creams. When you practice on family for free, they really can't complain - and goodness knows I have enough neices/nephews/kids of my own/ BILs/ SILs/ MILs/ friends to stay busy the better part of the year. If only I could stop EATING the DOMES!!!! ARGHHHH!!!!
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Permalink Reply by Kathy Martinez on
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In my younger days, I had always wanted to know "how did they get those cakes so pretty". I decided back in 2004 to take some cake decorating classes at Michaels. I got hit with the cake decorating bug! I wanted to learn more and more of the techniques and learn all about gumpaste and fondant, etc.. I bought books, magazines, etc.. and watched many many cake decorating videos and learned a new technique each time. I took more cake decorating classes. Then it was practice, practice, practice. I did my own twist on icings, example,, cut back on powdered sugar, use better vanilla extract, less or more which ever made the recipe better. Then decided to put my own twist on cake decorating. Meaning, I go outside the norm of beautiful cakes decorated. I put my own into cake decorating. People out there know my cakes by design and taste. ( I guess that is a good thing)..
I'm going back and forth as to whether to really take that next step and open a little shop and really go for it..
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Permalink Reply by Diana Viera on
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I started young, around 13 or younger, when I was at home and when I took home economics in middle school. I was hooked on sewing, cooking, arts & crafts. I baked at home because my mom wasn't so good at it. As I became a mom at the age of 25, I made all the cakes for my boys and started making character/theme cakes as well as baking for every occasion no matter what function we went to. During the Nov. & Dec. 2009 months I decided to give baked items as gifts to save money and ended up getting requests after that with everyone asking when I was going to open up my own shop. With me getting bored and restless at my full time job and with the boys getting older, I decided to take a decorating class at JoAnn's Fabrics and now Michael's Crafts to do something different. Little did I know that I would be getting as many requests for cakes, cake pops and cookies so quickly. I have completed three courses with Wilton, finishing up my fourth and starting up my 5th and final. I absolutely love it and cannot get enough. The challenge of trying something new in cake decorating has hit me like a bug!!! I do hope to open up a shop one day. I was also asked to make flowers and sell them to someone who can bake but has a hard time making them. I now have the cake decorating bug and cannot get enough!!! In addition to that, I have met so many wonderful people here and all over the world:)
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