Please help me. I feel like I am in a style slump. I made another cake today but I think it just looks like all the others I made but worse this time. Please critique. Maybe I just have no imagination. I am really down. I just don't feel like I am making the fabulous cakes that I want to be making and I am doing my customers an injustice.

Thank you,
Lazy_Susan

I think half the problem with chocolate cakes is that they are just so brown! Prehaps try to add more colour somehow or use white chocolate to lighten the whole look up? I love your cakes, but I know what you mean about feeling like you're always churning out the same old things - I feel like that too sometimes

I think your cake looks absolutely yummy. That Chocolate icing looks amazing. I don't have a very good choc. icing recipe. I usually just make buttercream and add choc. to it. I really like the way you did the swirls as a border around the bottom.

It might help to keep in mind that even if it's "the same old thing" for you, it's brand new to your customer! A beautiful cake is a beautiful cake, even if it looks like one you did last week.....

I know the feeling. I did a bday cake back in the summer. I just did the regular german choc icing and then I put some rust, orange and yellow colored sunflowers on the cake. TO me german choc is kinda a guys thing and its so hard for me to do a guy cake.....LOL

I don't know about you, but I like Crsip lines on my cakes, and it doesn't look like the type of icing you're using allows for that. Also, sometimes on my chocolate cakes, I ice the top part white, which breaks up the brown. I have a Christmas cake in y photos I did like that. Those two things would make a big difference in appearance. Hope that helps!

I think it's great! It's a dark brown which makes it look so yummy, especially for a chocoholic!!!

If you were wanting to brighten it up some, I'd put yellow carnations around the bottom, too.

I really think it's great, though!

Thank you everyone I appreciate all your comments. Sorry for the downhearted post.

Grrrrrrr.... Now Hubby wants me to make him a German Chocolate Cake. *big sigh*

If it were me I would have just done the roses on top and left everything else chocolate. Kind of hard to decorate German chocolate.
It's a nice attempt though. Maybe you should try sketching out your ideas first. Or look for inspiration on the web. That's what I do...not too creative when it comes to cakes

Susan! Stop being so hard on yourself! We all get into ruts. I am a sign designer, and my loving offspring tell me that they can pick out my sign designs easily because they all look the same! aaaarrRRGGGGGHHHHH! I do it with my cakes too. I think we get into a comfort zone and have to force ourselves out sometimes. You're not alone!

When I do a decorated German Chocolate cake, I use the traditional coconut GC icing as the filling, and I am very generous with the amount. For icing...I either use Chocolate BC or Ganache. It's a little 'out of the box' for a German Chocolate, but I've recieved rave reviews on both options.

I love your swirly bottom borders.....I'm trying to branch out in the border area also. I do either shells....or rope. B O R I N G! lol

Anyway...hang in there.....tomorrow's a new day!

That cake has made me want to lick my monitor.

Maybe the thing I don't like about it most is that it is sooooo tall. I bought some of those bake strip thingies (which I love). It was the first time I had used them and they worked beautifully! No hump in my cake so I didn't need to cut any part of it off. Then I torted both layers and filled generously with the Coconut GC filling. Yes, I think that is the part that is bugging me about this cake. It's too tall and I think my ckae board is too small. I thought that I had bought a 10 x 10 x 5 cake box so I put it on a 10" cake board. However, when I got the cake box home I found that it was a cupcake box. So I had to put the cake (on it's little cake board) in my cake carrier to give to my customer (she'll return it).
For those of you who use the bake strip thingies, how do you overcome the Giant Cake syndrome?

You used the centrifical force spin on it didn't you Lazy_Susan Just trying to make you smile.

That's not too tall! The bigger the better, especially with all that yummy chocolate! Pass the milk, woman! lol Not a thing wrong with that cake, Susan. I do think like some of the others, try some color! I can't talk because I hate how my practice cakes all look like Wilton class cakes. I am ready for something else meself.

Hi,
Your cake height is great. I especially like tall cakes when it comes to chocolate. And your dark choc looks perfect. If it were me I believe I'd keep the sides straight and smoothe and use that great border you have there smaller around the top as someone else suggested. The idea of going white on top sounds classy to me with the dark rich sides. Having the coconut icing on top works well too. I don't think I'd add color to it and let the chocolate scream out loud and clear. After all, if a customer wants chocolate they want chocolate. You did great! I know it can be boring feeling like you just keep repeating yourself in your work, but unless your customers all know eachother who but you knows how many of these you're making. Pat yourself on the back for your beautiful work and keep up the great work.
Sincerely....

Hey there - sorry I'm just jumping in although your cake is already done, but I had to LAUGH at the lady who was talking about losing her cake mojo! I know exactly how that feels! Sometimes I feel like I've lost all my creativity, but this website has been great for giving me ideas, as well as the Wilton discussion forum, but this one is great cuz you can see so many more pics.

I did a German Chocolate cake for Christmas and she wanted it to look "Christmasy" so I had some colored decorations on it to make it more festive. And I just thought it looked, well, weird! A gourmet chocolate cake with bright colors? It just didn't go together, but that's what she wanted. I find that the more "gourmet" of a look you're going for, the more monotone or uniform the colors should be - it sounds boring but we're going for "class" and not "flash." Now flash can be a lot of fun with the right kind of cake, but when it comes to something like chocolate - it's better to keep it browns - or the white - that sounds gorgeous! I saw one - I think in the Cake Gallery here - where it was all chocolate but the top had brown and white chocolate swirls drizzled on it and it looked amazing. Different shades of brown can look great but I'm usually too lazy to do that!

Do you mind sharing your recipe for that yummy chocolate frosting you used? Is that ganache? I've never made it, but I can never get my buttercream that dark - so it must be a different kind of frosting.

Oh -and tall cakes are great - they look so much better than short cakes - I'm always wanting to get my cakes taller! But my Bake Even strips haven't been working well lately, I wonder why?

Anyway, you're still an amazingly talented cake decorator so hold your head AND your piping bag up high! And Long Live Yummy Looking Dark Chocolate Cakes!

Melissa

I know I'm here at the end, but the cake is beautiful!!! The shine on the cake makes it look so fresh. I'm in a rut too - everyone wants chocolate cake with peanut butter icing!! I might cry if I get another one. Most people don't want color on it so its more and more tan!! Picasso had a blue period - I have a tan period! Hang in there!

I understand what you mean Susan! I'm still pretty new but I do find myself in ruts too doing practice cakes. However, I've added your picture to my "Cakes to try" practice book! I like it!!

I'm going to say first rattle out of the box that I'm weird. I don't particularly like chocolate. I don't find it appealing....including visually appealing. So....when I DO make a chocolate cake (I'm talking chocolate on the outside here)...I usually just prefer to have it be chocolate and nothing else. Very little in the way of decorations. Just some borders to neaten things up. For me, the most effective chocolate cakes have puffs of whipped cream...or dribbles of white or darker chocolate. Maybe a pile of strawberries. Or perhaps a big ol' pile of chocolate curls. But, no flowers...no leaves. Nothing that resembles a classic decorated cake.

Having said that...I have to deliberately MAKE myself do something that's not white. I think we all tend to get the "same ol' same ol" thing going on in our own heads. So, I know where you're coming from. We're our own worst critics.

Your icing has a lovely texture to it, BTW.

I personally would have left the yellow flowers off, or if you wanted flowers a nice light pink may have worked...I really like the pink and brown combo (look at my one baby shower cake, it was brown and pink)

Take it for what it is worth, I have seen VERY FEW chocolates cakes that VISUALLY look appealing to me. Maybe because I am not a big fan of the color brown. Yes they look good to eat but not to look at. Luckily I have NOT had a customer request a caked iced in chocolate. If I ever do, I would be in the same boat you are in. Brown is brown and most colors you place with it will stand out like a sore thumb. (like your yellow flowers) When I looked at your other photos, I was surprised at how many chocolate cakes you have done. I would agree with you that the cake looks too tall. If I had to do a choclate cake I would probably stick to a light brown and add maybe chocolate shavings, nuts etc. and go for more textures than color. You are braver than I am!! You are doing fine. To me it is hard to be creative with a brown cake. Keep up the good job!! [/quote]

MMMMMMMM........That cake makes me hungry But I'm on a Diet
that cake looks perfect Lazy_ Susan.... Great Job!!!!

Susan, your cake looks great!

I'm with some of the others though...I think it's the color I am having a problem with. Yellow and brown are two tones from the same family. I really like chocolate with a soft pink or red, both colors really seem to <POP> when paired with a chocolate's brown tone.

The cake's height is great, wouldn't change anything about it. We all go thru a creative burnout from time to time. But as someone else here stated: Even though for you it is just the same old thing...it's something new to the customer. And what the customer wants...the customer gets! (But you can usually "gently steer" them towards a new idea!)