Best Way To Gain Decorating Experience?
Business By GateauGirl Updated 13 Mar 2007 , 6:05pm by heavensgaits
I am a total newbie, just fresh out of a Wilton class with a few cakes under my belt (ones I've done for co-workers and friends). I want to develop speed & quality and know I have a long way to go before I can think about turning this into a business, but my creative juices are driving me to learn FAST!
Opening up the forum to recommendations: what do you suggest as the best way to gain experience in decorating while I still hold down a full-time job? An apprenticeship? Working part-time on weekends at a bakery? Just taking classes or teaching myself? I live in central Virginia and the opportunities to learn seem limited so far. I've also gotten advice from a local baker to NOT do an apprenticeship because it's "not worth it"...didn't get straight advice on what I actually SHOULD do to learn more, aside from taking classes this particular baker may begin teaching.
I've seen several individual, specific posts on these ideas but wanted more general advice on which route to follow. Thanks for your input! 
hi there,
i had only done the three classes myself and could not get into any other classes due to my full-time job, other commitments, etc..what my teacher had told me was to practice, practice, practice...some would recommend a part-time job in a bakery, some would recommend getting books or videos to help with your techniques, get cake dummies and practice that way, try to get into another class, etc...i found that due to my limited time, if i can find something on this site and try to do it, it is just one more thing that i've learned..i am currently attempting to do a purse cake and that was based on the tutorial from this site (which is just amazing)...everyone on this site, from newbies to self-taught to professionals have contributed advice in one form or another and you can't go wrong learning from here.. 
oh and if that baker is offering classes on things that you haven't learned, then go ahead and take it...what the classes are doing is giving you a platform to work from...it always helps
Jellligirl is right. Practice, practice, practice. I usually try something new on a small cake and give it to friends. I've been decorating cakes for about a year and I still feel like I work slow. Another thing that helps is buying decorating books. I purchased a Debbie Brown book that has simple instructions for awesome cakes.
I know how you feel. I work FT and I've done some decorating after taking all 3 Wilton classes too but I still need to practice. That's the most common response Practice. The only problem is that most times I get all these ideas but I rarely do any decorating...just get lazy (I guess from working FT). Anyway, one thing I think I'm going to do is to set a goal like do 2 cakes per month or something like that to gain more experience. Another possibility is to ask if there are any cake clubs in your area. You could put a post in the forum to ask. If you could find a PT job and have the time, I think that would be a great idea. Hope this helps.
Keep doing cakes for family and friends get the word out to them that you need the practice and would like to offer them your services for a reasonable price. Take all the classes you can get and if you do both of these things it won't be long and you will have had all the practice that will make you feel more confident and then you'll reach out even further to broaden your horizons. It is addictive isn't it?????????
Kathy
I give away lots of practice cakes...my DH jokes that my week isn't complete until I've made a cake! I take them to work, now that give some job security!! They'll never downsize the office 'baker'!
I just use CC as my inspiration for new ideas, and practice on the weekends.
I got really lucky. I was asked to do a cake for a friend and took pictures of it and emailed the pictures to the local indoor bouncy house place. I had a party there once so I knew the owners. I emaile dmy picture of my cake to them, and they called me and asked me to do a cake for their own personal child's birthday. Then they started asking me to do the cakes for their parties each weekend. I totally lucked into this and love all the experience I am getting from it. I also gave them some of my cards and they give them to the parents in attendance at the parties. I have gotten tons of exposure that way.
So, you might call any local place that does parties - bowling alley, skating rink, etc and offer them one of your cakes for free and see if they will order more!
Practice Practice Practice. And whatever you do, SAVE your pictures onto a disk. I had a virus hit my computer and lost everything. I now have to rebuild my cake album and I had made a lot of cakes.
I sent an email out to all my friends telling them I was trying to rebuild my album and I needed cakes! What a response! It's been great, letting me try new things, also, it gets more customers once people see the cakes.
I work full time too. But I look for classes at night or on the weekend, for instance, I'm taking the Wilton Gumpaste/Fondant class, and it's Saturday nights.
Good luck and welcome to CC!
I say if your up to it, do the part time job at a bakery. You will save money not giving away a ton of cakes, and they will pay you while you get to "practice". (Obviously this is what I did.) You learn about what goes into running a bakery and a business, and other tricks of the trade in decorating. Working for even just a few months will put you so far ahead of where you would be if you just did cakes for practice at home for a few years. Because you have to do so many while working you learn speed and precision. At home it's easy to put it off and it not get done, at work you just do it. You also don't have to do the baking part, so you really just spend your day honing your decorating skills. It's definitely the faster way to get your decorating skills improved.
THANKS SO MUCH, everyone, for your responses! I clearly need to just keep practicing & see if I can locate a bakery in my area (Richmond, VA) which actually might need some help...in the meantime I guess I'll just resign myself to having a messy kitchen at least once a week. 
THANKS SO MUCH, everyone, for your responses! I clearly need to just keep practicing & see if I can locate a bakery in my area (Richmond, VA) which actually might need some help...in the meantime I guess I'll just resign myself to having a messy kitchen at least once a week.
trust me...the messy kitchen is just the fallout of all of the creative explosions you are going to have once you get to thinking "hmmm....would strawberry buttercream go with a spice cake shaped like a gucci purse?"
Hmmm...so when do you know you're "good enough" to land even a p/t job at a bakery? I just walked into the new location of one I know in the area today, and I was quite shocked when I asked if they were hiring decorators and the clerk said "yes". Now what?!?! Of course, there is a "try-out" session where I would probably not pass for an experienced cake artist at all (the clerk said this is the way they hire, since no portfolio can demonstrate how efficient you really are)....Seeing as I'm fairly new but I really want to learn, any thoughts on how to approach this? I know there are bakers out there who are quite successful in my area and have had no formal training as cake decorators! I am kind of intimidated & would not know how to ask them directly, "how did you get hired with no real experience in the business?" 
This is a great question!
i have only taken wilton class one and two. I'm still looking foward to doing the 3rd one. I'm also lucky to have a culinary school nearby that offers cake decorating classes with Toba Garrett. Unfortunately i haven't been able to afford them yet... but look foward to attending one day. Every once in a while i search for bakery job postings to see if there is anything near home. Hoping i can learn from there too.
I have done 90% free cakes for family at no charge. I'm done with that cause once i couldn't afford to give them free anymore... they don't bother asking for a cake that they'll have to pay for. it seems like work is the same situation.. at least 2+ more times they order a birthday cake or occasion cake. but never bother asking me... yet they all say how pretty and good they taste. ok sorry i went on rambling...but no free cakes.
The best way to get experience is to just do it! That is how I got all my experience. I only started decorating cakes in December 2005. So it's only been little over a year. I can't believe how time has passed. I made my first cake with the encouragement of CC members and I am still here relying on each and every one of them.
Lazy_Susan
I had been away from decorating for decades when I took it up again about a year ago. My skills were VERY rusty, and styles had changed. It was like starting over. I live alone. Was unemployed. New in town...no church connections. What'd I do? Bake, bake, bake! Sometimes I finished a cake, took a sample slice to evaluate the cake and frosting recipes...and threw the whole thing away. (OK...maybe I took more than one slice...but sometimes one was all I needed to know it wasn't going to work! LOL)
I made a whole bunch of practice cakes. I'd do them specifically to try this technique or that technique or color combination or whatever. It was no time before I felt I was back up to speed. I didn't worry about all the ingredients I hauled to the curb. It was a small investment in my skills. Now I feel I can hold my own with pretty much anything.
It's a lot of fun to try new things. You don't need a special occasion. Just do it for you!
I also would say make a variety of flavor combos & designs and give them away to anybody who will eat cake, friends, family, co-workers, places you go often (dry cleaners, kids schools etc.). I also swap cakes with people for things I need. I am making a cake for our scrapbooking weekend retreat in lieu of the $40 fee! Eventually people will tell other people how great your cakes are and you will be too busy!
Good luck, my best friend lives in Mechanicsville and will volunteer to be your guinea pig!!
So excited, I can't believe it...in 2 days I'll go to "try out" at a bakery I mentioned in a previous post...I am super-nervous! Being probably much less experienced than the person they're looking for, I'm afraid of becoming the laughingstock of their kitchen (I have only just started Wilton 2 but have practiced on my own & made lots of "freebie" cakes). Any tips for the "audition"?
I am worried about having the right icing consistency to use, being able to work with their tips & other materials (maybe I should bring my own)? Any advice from those of you who've tried out before? Thanks!
Weird - maybe it's just me, but I think many of the responses to my "try out at a bakery" post were the same ones I received from previous posts...is there an "automated response" feature in this forum. In my post, I'm actually asking more for advice on "trying out" at the bakery & hearing others' experiences with showing what they can do in a production-oriented setting (whether at a bakery or grocery store). Since I already do a lot of donating, I will continue to do that anyway...thanks for your help!
hey girl!
they hired me straight out of my first wilton class...gee, time has flown that was in 1999.
i worked in 5 different bakeries before getting my own place,
you can't beat the experiance you'll gain at working at a bakery.....it can just about drive you to madness at times, but i wouldn't take anything for my experiance.
if you're going to make money at it...speed is important....you'll learn that at the bakery.
i mean you can't earn much...on your own if it takes you hours upon hours to do a 1/4 sheet.
Thanks littlecake...great advice! I'll go with that! I am nervous but we'll see how it goes this morning...cross your fingers for me! I hope it works out, but as I heard from a decorator this weekend at the Mid-Atlantic cake show: "If they don't need you there, that just means you're needed somewhere else." Those words came from Sandy Hargrave & she said to just keep trying...
Thanks again for your note!
Hi,
I agree with everyone else. Practice until your tired. I have been decorating cakes for family and friends for the past 17 years. And I am still learning new tech's everyday. I am currently in the process of starting my own bakery that I have dreamt of for the past 10 years. I have quite alot of following now things at my full time job just seems to be disintergrading here. I have put my business in the Lord's hands and things are really looking very hopeful. We have a rental house that I am going to refurbish into my bakery to at least get me "legal" then eventually when I find a commerical location I will up and running. I have a name and my prices and a plan all figured out.
There is only so much you can give your family and friends as far as freebies are concerned so think about your local fire department or police department drop of some of your practice cakes they are always eager for homebaked goodies. Or if you have some recipes you want to try make them up into cupcakes and drop a couple of dozens off at hair salons, fd, ps, your insurance company, paramedics, etc. Cupcakes goes along way. And if you want to put filling in them you can try out recipes for that as well. That is also one way of getting orders to.
But I love this forum and CakeCentral everyone is so nice and willing to lend an ear or give helpful suggestions.
Sunday from Bama
Sunday - keep goin', and let me know when you've realized your dream! Sounds like you're already there, really. I only wish I could snap my fingers & have the years of experience you have.
Those are great ideas - a new fire station just opened up down the road - I need to welcome them to the neighborhood, and what better way to do that than bake 'em a cake.
As for the audition, it went ok. I should have brought my own supplies, though, since I kept having "technical difficulties" with the couplers (didn't seem to be the right size for the bags they had) so I had icing EVERYwhere, but in the end I think I did a decent job - the cake just took about 20 minutes longer than it would have otherwise because I just couldn't find a bag/ coupler combo that worked even after checking out several of them.
The head decorator was very nice & complimentary, considering I had a tough time with it. We'll see what happens...if this isn't the place for me, I will keep looking. Although it did seem like a great place and I would definitely re-apply there if I weren't accepted at this level of experience!
This forum has been such a big help and confidence-booster. THANKS to everyone for your responses!
I don't know if anyone else does this, but when I did the first fondant cake that's in my gallery, I had made up a bunch of mini cakes. My best friend decorated one and I decorated the other one. Granted I was working full time and the rest of the cakes had to be thrown away. I gave my first fondant cake to a Medevac pilot that was on an overnight shift that night. I used to work at an Army Airfield. Mini cakes give you a lot of different decorating surfaces to try stuff out on. Just an idea
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%