hi there....i'm pretty new to this whole baking/cake thing...i'm REALLY enjoying it and have just started doing it cause my job stresses me out and i needed a hobby!!!....i've done a few cakes and cookies here and there (lots of bachelorettes)..but i keep offering to make cakes and cookies for people, and each time i feel that i have to out-do myself....i lay in bed at night designing and freaking out how i'm going to pull them off!!!!....this is supposed to be fun, and i honestly do enjoy it so much, but i have so much to learn....any advice for a newbie who just wants to be the best right away?....i'm panicking at the 2 orders i have coming up in the next week.....

Hmmm. Sounds oh so familiar! I am so the same way. YOu need to watch a talk on video that Melvira posted a week or so ago. I dont know how to link it so I will see if I can find it for you. Don't stress. If they are asking you to make the cake, its because they like what you can do, and they probably can't make cakes. It will look great in their eyes. The other thing I remind myself, it will be eaten & gone in a matter of minutes. What are your orders for?

The one thing I have learned as a decorator and a party planner...even if you make mistakes chances are good no one will notice. It has to be a HUGE mess up to get people to take notice.

I do know what you mean tho..no one puts more pressure or is harder on me than myself. I feel with each new skill I challenge myself to learn the more I should challenge myself to be even better. Now, the people I make these cake for seem to think I'm a wizard but I've seen what the best looks like right here on this site and I SO strive to be like them!

Cat

I really can't give any advice on this because I'm the same way. Then I feel bad about charging really the true price and charge less. I love doing cakes but some times the stress out weighs the relaxation of it. Guess I'll have to learn to chill out a little. Good Luck

thanks guys....i posted some pictures the other day and my best cake had to go in the adult themed area haha....i checked like a million times that day to see if anyone favourited any of my pictures and i was so sad....isn't that pathetic???....finally someone favourited one my blah cakes....but it made me feel a bit better...i even txted my boyfriend....he thinks i'm silly...haha.....i think you're right though...i'm my worst critic....i just want to be as good as the ace of cakes ppl...i love them..haha...oh!!..and my 2 cakes coming up are a 2-tier quilted cake for my "sister-in-law", and a baby shower cake for a big work party...i'm doing it in a pea pod theme....and of couse the hannah montana topsy-turvey birthday cake for my niece in 3 weeks....here come the nerves again!!!..

The cakes in the naughty galleries never get as many views right away, but later on they may get more than you would think.

I don't judge my cakes by how many times they're favorited...many times people will favorite something that they want to try making sometime, so it's not really a judgement of how much they like it, more of whether they might want to copy it sometime in the future. I do post my cakes on an art website too, because I like to see the reactions from non-cakemakers too.

Patience and practice are the key to gaining confidence when you make cakes. Understand that you're working with food, and food is not as dependable of a medium as something like granite...you may have a bad fondant day, or your cake may fall during baking and you don't know why...that's where experience comes in. The more times you've done something, the easier it is to know it will turn out exactly the way you've planned.

The other thing that's important is to actually sit down and figure out how much your cakes are costing you...if you're baking for friends and they're reimbursing you for supplies, you want to make sure that you're really asking for enough. If you're baking just for experience and giving the cakes away, you want to make sure you can afford to do it...nothing will burn you out faster than spending your grocery budget on cakes for other people. I've made that mistake before.

Texas_Rose, you hit it....i think that's probably the biggest stressor...the cost.....obviously the more tools and gadgets you have, the better things look, but it also costs to get there....and i have NO clue what to charge, so i've just been telling ppl to tell me what they think they should give me...sometimes it covers it, sometimes it doesn't....i live in a small town where there aren't a lot of things available to me, but there also isn't a lot available to anyone else either in the way of creativity....i really do enjoy doing this, but i was doing it to get AWAY from the stress!! i will take your advice though...it was very touching and honest...i should probably go to bed too!!!

You don't really need all the tools and gadgets you see

Especially all the Wilton fondant stuff...save money and skip most of it.

My best tools are a vinyl mat ($3 at the fabric store) and a pair of kitchen scissors ($1 at the Dollar Tree). My best splurge was a Sil-pin rolling pin ($23 at Ross).

At the very least, you should figure out the cost of your ingredients and your supplies...dowels, cake boards, etc...and get people to give you that much, otherwise you'll feel like you're being taken advantage of, and you'll be right. Be sure you add in some of the misc. stuff that you don't have to buy every time, like food color or flavorings, because when you make enough cakes, you'll start going through that stuff too.