This cake was made by another bakery. The owner claims it would take her 3 hours to make. Can this be? She said from start to finish!! I know I couldn't do it that amount of time. How bout you?

Sorry if it seems like I'm calling her a liar, that's not my intention. I'm trying to learn because as we all know time is money but if I speed up my work, it comes out sloppy, so I would like to know how others do things and yet put out beautiful work.

You mean including baking or just decorating? Just the deco, yeah, sure.

Ok lets just say, just the deco, wouldn't you need time for those stars to dry?

Maybe she wasn't including drying time. She might of been talking about having everything ready (cakes baked, pieces dried) and then just having to assemble. I know it would take me at least that long with having everything ready, if not longer.

she's prob not including the baking or drying time. the decorating I could do in 3 hours

Actually I can get the stars to dry in that amount of time, but maybe not the 4. I actually put CMC into gumpaste and add extra cornstarch. It's practically set up when I'm working with it. Gotta be fast.

What is CMC? I've used tylose in fondant but it to me that 4 might take some time.

same thing, I think.

I think 3 hours is resonable for decorating. Typically I break up projects like that and cut the things to dry in one sitting, etc so all in all probably mini sessions that total 3 hours

I would say yeah 3 hours not counting baking time....but wrapping the board, filling and icing the cakes, fondant, stacking, decorating, and stars and number "4" would take about 3 hours. Although I wouldn't do all mine in one full day, I'd have made the 4 and the stars early (mostly the 4, I can do stars straight on the cake if I don't feel like doing them early) and sometimes I crumb coat and ice the day before the fondant, or hours before at least, and then chill.

If you count baking and cooling time, then more than 3 hours of course.

I agree withe everyone else. Without including baking, cooling, leveling,and all the extras it probably could only take 3 hours BUT, you have to remember that SOMETIMES bakeries already have pre-made or pre-purchased decor on hand. Not to mention, that maybe there is more than One person working on the cake (like we see of some shows) With this being said, she probably can do it in that time frame.

Ok so than I guess I need to do things a little different. Or stop looking at all the details that go into cake decorating ... lol

I could do that cake in 3 hrs (not counting baking or cooling time). But I would tell someone that it took 3 hrs on that cake, but they would really have no idea that it was 3 hrs over the past 24 hrs lol.

lol with the both of you

Auntginn, I love your quote/signature, love it!

Thank you msthang1224

Like everyone else said, three hours for decorating alone is plenty of time. If I have fondant bows or embellishments like the stars sticking out of the cake I would do them a day or two in advance so they can dry. The fondant work on the cake is simple. The most time consuming thing is coloring the fondant!

Yes, I'm sure that if all things being perfect.... and she had all the prep work done so that it was only the decorating then of course 3 hours would be enough, but... we all know that when we are counting the time to make a cake "from start to finish" which is what she said, it couldn't be done. For me the prep work can take that much time.

Last week I made a cake "from start to finish" including baking, painting fondant etc.. in the shape of a boon box. It was a small cake and it took me pretty much all of 7 yrs. (Had to include the cooling time of the cake, although we don't charge for that, lol)