Hey ladies (and gents), I just started making cakes in June, so I am very very new. I have learned SO many things on here - if it werent for this forum, I would have never learened about dowels, how to cover cake boards, how to smooth, all these basic crucial things. So thank you all so very much. I just started doing fondant also, and found out that I LOVE IT!

Okay, so here is my question. I find that making these cakes are taking me, literally, hours. My family dreads when I make one, becuase thye know that I get stressed, make a BIG mess, and stay up all night. haha. For instance, the Wu Tang cake took me about five hours, no joke.

(Trimming, frosting, doing the filling, smoothing, making the fondant, coloring the buttercream for the lettering, cutting the design out in fondant, ROLLING the fondant - this was hard because it was a half sheet and I had to roll it out BIG (3 tries), making the bees, hand painting the bees, you know the deal).

It takes me sooo long. I know that it is also due to me being so new and slow. I love it, dont get me wrong, I get in my zone and have fun, but I see some other peoples cakes on here that have 10x more detail, colors, and design, and can onyl wonder - WOW, how long did this cake take to make?

I would love to hear your stories.

I don't do everything all at one time...for example, I will make the fondant one day, bake the cakes the next, cover and decorate the day after that, if it's a big cake. That way I can clean up the mess in stages as I go along and it's not so overwhelming. Also it keeps the cake feeling fun and not like a job.

Sometimes there are things you can do ahead of time, flowers for example.

To give you an idea of the time that I spend on things, the corset cake that I just did (in my photos) took me three hours to fill, carve and decorate. I'm making a cake for my daughter's birthday that will probably take a good amount of next week, between the gumpaste pieces and the actual cake. It's not going to be a big cake either. Some things are quicker than others.

O my gosh, 3 hours and thats it?! AMAZING. Simply amazing. I cant believe you did all that work in 3 hours.

I'm slow, too. I work mainly in BC, and it takes me a really long time to get it as smooth as I want. If I'm doing tiers, that takes even longer! Fondant figures take me several days, a few hours at a time to finish...then they might need painting,etc. I also bake one day, freeze, thaw and crumb coat another day, frost and decorate another day...
I'm only a hobbyist, but if I could charge by the hour, I could take a cruise or two!

Well, 3 hours did not include the baking time or the fact that I overfilled the pans and had to start over and scrub burned red velvet batter off every bit of the oven before I could rebake 3 hours was just the time it took to go from naked cake to finished cake. The thin red strings were all made with a clay extruder so even though they look difficult, they were as easy as turning a handle

Things do get faster with practice. Things that took me all night when I tried them last year now take a few hours.

Oh, and for the stripes on the bees, if you need to do something like that again and you know the pieces will not be eaten (for example, bees on wire) you can draw the stripes on with a plain ol' crayola marker...they're nontoxic and it's a fast way to do it.

Awww, thanks Texas Rose! You give me hope. Also thanks for that tip, the crayola marker is a great idea.

your cakes are just stunning. I can only hope to make cakes HALF as nice as you do one day.

Awww...thanks! You're off to a really good start, judging by your photos. Your buttercream is already smoother than I can do (that's why I stick to fondant LOL).

It basically takes me the whole day. I make sure that I will have to try something different when I make my cakes.