Hi I'm a relative newbie on the forum.

I live in Israel and have recently started a home cake business. I was doing catering before and cakes were a sudden interest that took over LOL. I took Wilton course I in June, and started advertising a few weeks ago. I have had a good response from people, and my neighbours love coming over to see my "latest" I'm hoping to have 2 or so cakes a week, I can't handle more than that as I'm a SAHM with a 2 yr old and a 1 yr old, and I also do editing! I am also not doing wedding cakes,
On my website you might not understand the fine print, it basically tells my customers which Kosher ingredients I use and that all the cakes are dairy-free.

Thanks for looking
Sharon
www.israelcakes.com

I love the set up and the colors are great. Very easy to navigate and I could find all the information I needed.

Great Job!!

Your website is wonderful!!!! Very professional.

I like your web page, the colors, and the cake photos.

You did an excellent job

Love you website! How did you do those beautiful cupcakes on the home page?

Kim

looks really good! i found some typos:
If you have something specific you would like that is not listed, please feel free to enquire as to availability

it should read "inquire" not enquire. and on the edible image page the apostraphe "s" after sharon carries onto the next line, instead of "sharon's" all on the same line.
and on the flavors page you spelled "mocca" instead of "mocha".

i would also recommend working on improving the quality of your photos. particularly, how they are displayed, whats in the background, and the lighting.

i think its going in the right direction though!

Thanks
You guys reply quickly LOL

My cakes are in the gallery. I'm waiting to have my cakes photographed professionally, until then I'm using bought photos (from istockphotos). They're all things I feel I could reproduce, and if people ask I don't claim to have made them. LOL I feel so defensive after all the posts I've read!
As for the purple cupcakes, they look like shortbread with buttercream and fondant hearts.

I love my website!! DH's cousin designed it, she's great, and the colours are SO me

I think the site it's looking very good, but I wouldn't use the professional photos because they make yours look bad in contrast. especially if the first photos you see are so professional.
The colors are beautiful and your cakes are looking great, and they are gonna get better. I was in Israel, how do cakes keep in the hot weather.
I'm also thinking of making my business all parve, but I feel I'm going to loose a lot in flavor. Could you share some good parve substitutes?

Did you make that dark chocolate basketweave ? Would you share your recipe for the dark chocolate ?

Hi Sharon,

Welcome to CC and cake decorating! I really like your site it is easy to navigate. I agree with paolacaracas, use your own photos. You have some beautiful cakes to choose from. I think the tiered cake with the baby would be very nice on a homepage. Please post more photos in the gallery, it's nice to have some Jewish themes in there. Is the superman cake for an upsherin? Are you doing anything special for Rosh Hashanah?

I have a kosher parve bakery here in the states so I am marketing to the same groups.

Paolacaracas, I understand your concern, my goal has been to make my parve items so flavorful that you won't think they are parve. PM me about specific things you want to substitute for and I'll try to help.

Kathi

You're so courageous for starting a cake business. There are so many of us out here who'd like to, but lack your gumption. Don't get defensive. We love you, and want your site to look great. We're just another pair of eyes to help you along the way. Learn from our mistakes.

Anne

Your site looks great! Very professional

I know my cakes don't look as good in comparison. My designer's thought process was that you want to wow people when they open up your site, and the lighting on my photos isn't "wow". My cakes look so much nicer in person, it's so frustrating!
The newer pics (most of the tiered cakes, including the baby) I only uploaded today, and for right now I can't afford to revamp the whole site's graphics. I appreciae the input though!

As for non-dairy cakes, I know that butter tastes better, but my cakes taste yum anyway I use non-dairy creamer and water (half/half) in the cakes instead of milk. I use butter-flavoured margarine instead of butter in my "buttercream" and cakes. I think my cakes have a lot of flavour, and most people buying parev cakes aren't expecting a dairy taste kwim?

The superman was on a tzitzit, for an upshirin. It was a FBCT, and was a hit

Are you asking about the basketweave on the frog pond? I used chocolate buttercream for that. The wilton recipe with a LOT of cocoa and creamer to thin it down.

Wrt hot weather, there has been a heatwave this week and my roses were softer. It made them a little easier to pipe, but I had to freeze them a little before I transfered them. I don't know how the cakes fared after they left here, but I, T"G, have A/C and so it's cool enough that things crust over and don't melt!

For Rosh Hashana I was thinking of promoting the cookie bouquets. I'll make 3 sizes and see if I can find some cute "apple and honey" containers. I'll either do flowers or see if I can find some themed cookie cutters. I'll upload some samples to the site before then.

Sorry post so jumbled, I keep looking to see if I answered all the questions.

Sheesh! I better take Wilton Course I over again! And II & III! I definitely missed something. You do nice work. Best of luck to you!

Looked up "Mocca" in google and found that I am not alone in my spelling. So since that's how I always type it, I'm leaving it! I'm standing up for my non-Americanness LOL

I think my photography could be better too. I try to get alot of up-close shots and at different angles to add interest on non-gallery pages as decoration to my site. I was a little disappointed in the cakes of my blueberry princess cake because it was so dark in the hall where I set up the cake. I wish I'd have taken pics at home before taking it over! It still looks good but not nearly as good as it did in person

I think your site looks great and that your photos look fine. Of course we all would love professional photos....and I would love to win the lottery too. We can't have it all.

I love the icing bag in the upper left hand corner spelling out your initials.

Please don't rely on Google for spelling. Eeek! You can always put this in the Google search bar:

define:mocha or whatever word you want, or check www.m-w.com for an online dictionary.