I am not a mom, but I have lots of nieces & nephews from 13 to 26. Their birthday presents have always been a cake from me. The goal was to make them grow up and reminise about the fantastic cakes they always got from their ole' Aunt! And it has worked! They always came up with some very challenging and fun ideas. Now I am looking forward to the day when they ask me to make a wedding cake!!
Maplecakes,
I did the same thing for years - cakes for neices and nephews, same age range. Just last year I got to make my nephews wedding and grooms cake. They just loved it, and I had free reign to do whatever I wanted. It was sooooo much fun and I put all my heart into it.
Nancy
I"ve seen plenty of sloppy cakes. During the 4th of July weekend Kroger was busy making cakes b/c they kept selling out so fast. The baker said to me "excuse the cakes but I'm trying to get them out as fast as I can". Talk about not caring about the look.
Grocery stores/generic stores don't care about quality just quantity.
My dad always made my cakes growing up and I do the same for my 3. There have only been a couple of time when I couldn't. Once I was preggo with the 3rd and had horrible am sickness and just a couple of weeks ago, we were camping for 10 days. I took DD out for ice cream instead and made a combo cake for her and DFIL the next week.
Oh, this reminds me of when I was pregnant both times...I couldn't stand the smell of VEGETABLE OIL! The icing I so loved when not pregnant, was like the nastiest smell in a garage to me. I couldn't even stand to open the cupboard to get the oil out. I dreaded doing cakes then. I'm really glad that that's all behind me!
LOL Sarah
LOL I'm lucky, I have a twin sister. This year I made 'our' cake- but everyone still thought that was weird (you can't make your own bday cake). LOL yes I can.
Thankfully for me, yes you can!!! For my 21st B-day I was away at college & I baked myself a 3D Ducky cake. Unfortunately, my friend that was supposed to come over and go out w/ me bailed, so I ended up w/ all this cake and no one to share it with! I took it to one of my classes the next day - not fun though as I had to transport it like 3 times on buses! And I almost had a homeless man attack me for it (I think.... he was following me & looked scary enough that I was walking quickly towards the bus-line). Anyway - it turned out great and my classmates appreciated it. But if I hadn't made my own cake - I wouldn't have had one!
I think the saddest thing is when people want a good cake but can't afford it at all - for example, I had someone ask me to make a sheetcake and I said I probably couldn't do it for under $35... for cost & labor - that was the lowest I could go. She couldn't afford to do it and I didn't have the time to do the cake for any less..... the cake they ended up getting tasted okay - but it wasn't something I wanted more than one little piece of.. I ended up making another cake for them for free as a graduation gift and they raved about it - but I know that they can't use me for simple birthday or celebration cakes simply b/c they don't/can't spend much money on a cake.
BTW = not to take over the thread or anything, but has anyone ever made an ice cream cake? I've never tried it but I always wondered about it...... I heard all the icing was made of lard on ice cream cakes... blech.
I worked for Baskin Robbins when I was about 18-19, and I made all the cakes. THe icing on the cake itself was vanilla ice cream, but the decorating icing was pretty gross -- it came in giant tubs and was "engineered" to stand up on the ice cream. Who knows what was in it! But, it was pretty "lardish" IMHO.
Sarah
Thanks for the welcome! I've already learned so much from everyone here! I'm working on a cake for my nephew's 1st birthday this weekend - Lightning McQueen from the movie Cars. I'm using the 3D cruiser pan and red fondant. I don't think I would have attempted it without this site!!
Melissa
Well, my dear dear mom usually buys cakes at the market for bday's and such. But when I was a kid there were a few times that we were the "poor" kids and my mom baked the cake. She would bake the cake in a baking dish and leave it in and frost it with store bought frosting and than I don't think that she owned and icing bag and somehow she would write Happy birthday on it. than for the cherry on top of it all she would buy those wierd royal icing type "candys" that you can get at the market and decorate the cake with those flowers. When someone would ask who made the cake she would say with alot of pride "I did". It is so funny but to me those were the best cakes ever.
But three years ago my younger sis was getting married and she wanted this cake that was very basic. At that time I wasn't into cake decorating. We asked a "friend" that makes very pretty cakes if she could make two half sheet cakes and two 10" rounds, but only ice them. No decorations, no nothing. She wanted to charge us $800.00 for that. We went to an actual bakery and we were able to get them for under $200.00 and they wereg reat at that, and because the guy wasn't sure that I would konw how to set up the coulmns and the tulle and flowers that my sis wanted, he ended up going to the hall and setting it up for free. That is when I decided to go into cake decorating for myself.
Now I am the cake lady to everyone from family to neighbors. And to my kids they are the coolest because there mom makes cakes they are not the "poor" kids. They can't wait until birthdays because they always have the biggest and best cakes.
I was at the market the other day and I remember a time when i used to think that the cakes at the market were just so beautiful and I wondered how they did all those flowers, well taking a second look the other day I was amazed to see that the cakes were actually the ugliest cakes and they were so bably put together and of such poor quality, how could I ever think that they were so pretty.
So in a nut shell it has to do with where you come from and what you are used to that dictates what you standards are when it comes to buying a cake.
Vic
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