I baked scratch cakes before I started trying to do decorating...and I have a lot of scratch cake recipes that have been passed down to me. I get a lot of requests for these cakes. BUT...now that I have had a little bit of practice with the decorating a few have found out about this (due to my practice cakes that I have been giving away). I had a friend of the family that called and wanted a humingbird cake for a family reunion but wants it decorated. My homemade cakes are moist, especially humingbird, Italian creme and carrot...I'm scared that trying to decorate my homemade cakes will be harder...does anybody have any hints to maybe making my homemade cakes and decorating them. I want them to be good...but some don't taste right with bc icing. What can I do? Thanks A lot in advance for your advice 
I think moist cakes are easier to decorate because they don't have as many crumbs. They also seem to hold up better.
There are so many different recipes for icings on this website. Just keep playing around until you find the ones you like.
I agree with Cindy. It is easy to add fondant decorations to an iced cake!
LOL but maybe I should dab a little into it
Hey fellow Kentuckian! You can try so many different buttercream recipes - check them out here at CC. I did cinnamon vanilla cake and used a cinnamon-coffee flavored buttercream and it was soooooo yummy! I've made homemade pineapple cake from a recipe here too and used the crusting cream cheese icing. I think the crusting cream cheese would work perfectly w/ the hummingbird cake. You can decorate it up all you want - you might not want to get really fancy into tiers and stuff if the cake is very moist and you don't think it will hold well structurally - but you can certainly do borders, flowers, etc. - LOTS of people use homemade cake recipes - there are debates here all the time about box mix vs. homemade - so you're not alone! Lots of people do it.
Why do you find scratch cakes more difficult to decorate?
I find the opposite. Box mixes are so soft and crumbly.
Scratch recipes seem to have a more substantial constitution and are certainly more tasty.
I agree that all do not go well with buttercream frosting but you revise your frosting for each application. Cream cheese, italian buttercream, etc.
Experience and experimentation will resolve alot of this.
I believe some feel boxes are more predictable and also their volume is a known entity. I.E. most boxes have 5 to 6 cups of batter. But if you make a scatch cake once, you measure the volume of batter and note it. No guessing after that.
Wilton has wonderful yearbooks that include charts for the volume of batter needed for each size pan. These are very handy. Try using these to take the guess work out of what size pan vs. batter.
I don't know why I am scared..I am scared everytime I whip up a batch of bc to decorate...I'm scared of a cricket..I'm just a nervous scared person I guess...I have been practicing on box cakes and everybody in this house including 4 year old are saying they are so sick of them..they want the homemade back. And they are probably right! They are kinda bland unless you doctor them up, but I find practicing on a box cake is WAYYYYY cheaper then practicing on a ..lets say....hummingbird cake. Guess I am scared that if I do use a bc based icing on these that people won't like them anymore...I don't know.
Hiya imartsy glad to see ya!!!
Thanks guys for the posts!
Have you tried to Dr cake mixes? There's books out there called hte "Cake Doctor books". They teach you how to add ingredients to box mixes to make them taste less like box mix and to get a wider variety of flavors.... who knows, maybe there's a hummingbird recipe in there too! It adds a little cost - but maybe not too much - and I do think it's easier sometimes to just have all those dry ingredients already measured in the box.... you may want to try Doctoring your cake mixes for an "imbetween" idea.
Also there are SOOO many buttercreams and fillings and cake flavors out there and you can try so many combinations.... what ARE you using for buttercream anyway? Is it all crisco? half butter/ half crisco? Italian Meringue? Cream cheese? don't be too fearful - if it ends up not being your best - there will still prob. be people who will eat it - or it goes in the trash - you can make a tiny cake just to taste.... like make 1/4 of the cake recipe and just make a tiny cake to try your flavors - then you don't even have to really decorate it up much or anything - just to test flavors out. I've done this a couple of times.
Where in KY are you? PM me!
It's lovely...it has pineapple and banana's, just a real moist old fashioned cake.
And thanks Imartsy I will try the baking a small cake thing to try..I use 1/2 and 1/2 BC. I have the cake mix doctor book also...I just haven't sat down and really read the recipes.
I love hummingbird cakes. They are to die for but I can't find anyone who has the recipe have you posted the recipe on this site.
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