I know I'm VERY slow at decorating cakes and hopefully with more practice will be able to cut down on the amount of time it takes to ice and decorate cakes.

This was my latest cake that I made for a friend's baby shower. I decorated it as directed by one of the hostesses...I didn't care for the colors or design. It is double layers of WASC using 6", 8" and 10" cakes. The cakes are covered in Sugarshack's buttercream with fondant accents.

So how long would something like this take a more experienced decorator? I'm embarrased to say it took me 9 hours to make this one.

Kim C

Hi Kim,

I can't answer your question about experienced decorators, because I'm not....But, I think your cake looks great. Your icing is sooooo smooth, and the decorations are really cute. You should be very proud of it.

I'm very slow at decorating too....don't feel bad. I don't think 9 hours is bad, it would probably take me longer.

When you say nine hours do you mean just decorating time? Your frosting is very smooth and your layers are very even. Did you use cutters? If I used cutters and had frosting made and dowels cut I would say four hours max. I am one of the lucky ladies who has a daddy with a cool tool to sharpen my dowels so I don't have to do that. The smoothing bc is what usually takes me the longest. The longer you do this the quicker you get though.

Kim, I would be proud too, it's really cute and baby butte smooth, holly cow! Great Job!!
LadyBug

Amy, the 9 hours included everything that needed to be done once the cakes were baked. I did use cutters for all the fondant work.

As for making my icing smooth, I used Sugarshack's recipe and techniques. My icing ended up with air in it so it took me longer than normal if it would have turned out airless like it should have.

I wished the "designer" would have added a bit more brown to the cake. The one stripe of brown just seems to make it off balance. I would added some brown dots and maybe even made the animals out of brown fondant.

Thanks for the praise and comments!

Kim C

I've only done a few cakes, but I'm slow at it too. Your cake is not only very smooth, but adorable...you did a fantastic job on it! Hopefully, I will get a little faster with my cake decorating, I do it as a hobby and only do cakes for my family.

Practice will gain you speed over time, and learning new techniques that save time .... thank god I found the bench scraper and the Melvira Method for quick, smooth icing! Melvira smooths out any air holes you might have.

If you can do some of the prep work ahead of time, that will help, too. Many times, its not the actual decorating that take up your time, but the small interruptions ... make icing, color the small batches, wrap the boards, hunt for that one tip or cutter that was JUST there a second ago, etc. Buy duplicate tools so you have plenty on hand and don't have to stop to hunt and/or stop to wash the tip so you can change colors. Then once you're ready to decorate, it's just a simple assembly line.

My first 3-tier wedding cake took me about 9 hours to ice and decorate (had to make about 50 BC roses and I'd never made a rose before in my life!). I can now do that same cake in about 4 hours.

You'll get there!

A professional I am not but the more cakes I make the faster I get! The first wedding cake I ever made was my own and it took me forever!! I had 250 bc roses on it and a friend was teaching me ins and outs as we went! It was only 3 tiers but it took me about 20 hours! Luckily I worked at a resturaunt that allowed me to store my roses in flats as I made them. I made over 500!! Due to the fact that it was my first time ever decorating a cake that didn't have candy pieces for decorations! LOL
But now I can make a cake 3 times the size in under 9 hours! Thanks to the miricle that is fondant I can do alot of cakes even faster! Smoothing icing always was my nemisis!

First off, your cake is adorable! And that buttercream is sooooo smooth. Great job!
I remember it taking me the whole week to bake and decorate my first wedding cake!! And I thought I will never get any faster but with practice I now can decorate a wedding cake in under 4 hours. If I can do it so can you. You have the hardest parts down pat, getting the cakes level and smooth now it is just a matter of time before you become speedy!!

Thank everyone for the words of encouragement. I'm hoping with time I will get quicker. Right now I'm concentrating on getting everything very smooth and level.

I have not tried the Melvira method but it sounds very similar to the one that Sugarshack teaches in her video. That's the method I have been using and am trying to perfect. I'm still amazed at how smooth the cakes are when I'm finished!

It would be awesome to know I could cut down my time to 4-5 hours per cake. I tend to stress-out over my daughters' birthday cakes since they take me so long to complete. To know I finish one in just one day would be such a relief!

Gosh, you gotta love CC. I very seriously doubt I would be decorating any type of cake if it weren't for this website.

Kim C