Hi everyone!
I've recently been inspired by my friend Krysten's awesome cakes and have decided to try to make my daughters 1st birthday cake in August! My friend told me about this site and I've been looking around for tips but I'm still very new to the abbreviations and techniques so I'm a little lost.

I've never made a cake from scratch before but of course I've done box cakes and just frosted them. I wanted to start practicing and doing "test" cakes so the actual cake for her birthday isn't too horrible looking..lol Can any of you please give me some tips/steps on how and where I should start? I don't even think I have good baking pans. The only ones I have and use are older pans I just used for box cakes. I'm sure this sounds silly but I'm not sure exactly what tools I'm going to need or even how to put a nice cake together. I've been doing research online but a lot of websites don't really start at step 1.

Thank you in advance for your help. I'm really excited to start practicing and I hope to be able to one day make cakes as processional as I've seen on here!

If you hover the mouse over the abbreviations, a little caption explaining them will pop up.

What you need to start with are a couple of straight-sided baking pans, an offset spatula, cake leveler, and a turntable. There's all kinds of fancy, expensive stuff you can get...but it's perfectly fine to start with the basics. I still use a cheap plastic Wilton turntable and I'm happy enough with it. Wilton also makes a very basic leveler that's just a wire on a frame for about three dollars, and it works really well.

The rest of what you need depends on if you're going to pipe decorations on or use fondant.

Welcome and this site is awesome. I was where you are about six months ago and probably the best thing was to take the first wilton class and read and view everything on this site I could get my hands on. There are tutorials on just about everything and if not here, on youtube. Have fun and I am sure you will make something amazing!

Colleen

@ Andreasmommy here a very good link to start with, its got the basics of frosting a cake to making Gum paste flowers, Just about everything you need to get started.

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-654103.html

and a few personal fav. Recipes recommended by CC members and myself....

http://cakecentral.com/recipes/1972/durable-cake-for-3d-and-wedding-cakes
http://cakecentral.com/recipes/6093/durable-cake-for-3d-in-chocolate

Thank you all sooo much! I'm super excited to go through all the help you've given me and start practicing! I'm sure I'll have more questions as I go but I'm going to start to watching the videos now!

I started out with a 9X12 pyrex cassarole dish making my cakes. I did get an offset spatula after the first cake- And piping bags and a few tips.

Matter of fact, my first cake was tub frosting died green- and a premade premade thing of white writing iceing. of course it took me like 12 tubs of icing and about 14 or so boxes of cakes. LOL

After that I did the coke cake, same pan, offset spatula, and tub icing. LOL But, the third cake was with homemade icing.

Do you have a cake in mind that you want to do? then we can help you with what basics you need to know to exectute it.

The Wilton yearbooks offer great beginner instruciton. I would start there.

I did 36 years ago

Jennifer

I'm actually going today to Joannas or Michaels to get some of the basics you all have suggested. I'm going to pick up a Wilton book too!

My daughters 1st birthday party is going to be themed "Western" We're getting a pony so I thought a pink & brown western party would be perfect! I was looking at the gallery on here and saw some amazing cakes! I was thinking a two tear cake with little baby horses on top and maybe a little fence with grass (or something like that). I was also thinking of making her, her very own little cake since most 1year olds get their own cake to eat

So, do I make my own butter cream and fondant? I've heard the marshmallow fondant tastes a lot better then the store bought. I'm also going to try that box cake recipe that you add too, that I've seen on here a lot!

Andreasmommy, Hi there!! You can't go wrong with the WASC (white almond sour cream cake) that uses a box cake as the base. I've done both scratch and WASC, and actually prefer the WASC. It is basically error proof and has excellent results. I would suggest buying fondant for the first time, that way you can get a feel for what fondant should be. The marshmallow fondant (mmf) is great for covering the cake, but it is too soft to do any detailed decorations. Another great recipe is Michelle Fosters Fondant (mff). But, again, buy ready made first Satin Ice is wonderful and pretty cheap online. You can buy styrofoam cake dummies online as well pretty cheap to practice on. Cover it in saran wrap and then fondant. That way, you can rip off the fondant and use over and over again (the styro, not the fondant, lol).
BTW, if you are going to buy food coloring, stick to Americolor. Wilton is crap, lol!
Any other questions, feel free to ask. I only started 7 months ago. I did, and still do, ALOT of research, and that is the only reason why my cakes look as good as they do(if I don't say so myself, lol). So, do some reading and watching, and there is no reason why you can't be a cake-decorating star in no time

Starting out can be stressful I remember worrying about if everything would turn out, the cake, icing, decorations then factor in the added stress of a tiered cake (will it stay standing?). I was so happy to take my fondant out of a bucket and at least not have that to worry about that part of it.