How Did You Find Your Cake Passion?
Decorating By yinyangmama Updated 29 Aug 2007 , 7:43pm by q2wheels
I am VERY green and new to all of this... and i have just started becoming interested in learning more to the art of cake design/decorating. I have already learned so much just from reading these forums in the past week or so! I was planning on taking the Wilton I class last month, but that plan fell through for the moment.
Anyway, my questions for you are this: How did you find your cake "calling"? and What steps did you take to get where you are today (classes, apprenticeship, flying blind)? Also, what are some good resources for learning the basic basics? I've been reading on here, as I said, but sometimes a certain grasp of cake making is implied in the discussion and I'd like to get up to speed!
Thanks for letting me snoop on all your posts and I look forward to your wisdom and guidance...
Becky
I got started on the decorating end a couple of years ago. I always loved to bake and I did try a few thing to spruce up my cakes but bags, tips, colors, etc always intimidated me. I started watching the Bake Decorate Celebrate show last winter and finally in Feb. this year I took the plunge. I bought some supplies and started practicing on cookies. In April I made my first 'real' decorated cake and have been hooked since! Everything I've learned has been through the show, books, and the internet, and of course trial and error!
I love the Wilton books, but not the yearbooks (weird I know). I just recently bought a bunch of old Wilton books from the 70's and 80's, lot's of cool things I want to try!
Good luck with this, it is a whole lot of fun and soooo addicting! 
It started with my second job. I was hired to work in the jewel (grocery store) bake shop. I didn't know I would fall in love with baking and stuff like that, but I did. And I wanted to learn how to decorate cakes. They didn't show me, but when I was hired at sams club, they showed me. Sams club (and walmart in general) is a not so good of a place to work. We would have 2 to 300 cake orders for a saturday during "graduation" season. Long story short, the cake decorating was fun, but the enviornment was not, at sams. But these two jobs helped me get my current job at the only Wilton store there is!(which is AWESOME!) And if it wasn't for jewel hiring me for that position, I would have never found out that I like this kind of stuff so much. That's how it all started!
I would say definitly take a class! I haven't taken a wilton class yet, but the school is in the back of my store, and the students really enjoy it. Also there are a few good books out there. I bought a book from my store which I love. It shows u step by step with very good pictures how to make things with different tips, and flower nails and explains how to hold the bag and all that good stuff. I don't know the name of it off hand but it u want me to look it up, I could give u the name! Well good luch with everything!
Creativenss in the Kitchen is relaxing for me... I've always done it since I was a kid. When I was a kid, my very first cake I ever had I won at the Cake Walk in grade school. It was all my very own.
No too long after, my mom let me bake. I made a bunny cake. It was awesome. I still have the picture of me holding the cake
Since I can't do aerobics anymore, then I get in the kitchen. If I were you, I'd take classes & go that route. As for me, baking has only paid off because of my sanity!!! And my coworkers love it!!
"Mommy, I hate homemade mac and cheese. I like the orange stuff from the box!" (don't say hate, honey)... "Yucky, I D-L (don't like) this! It doesn't taste like chicken pot pie!" "I put all your favorite things in it honey..." "But you mixed it all together!"
Unlike Snoopy, ("I must admit, he's very satisfying to cook for"Charlie Brown) my kids are very unsatisfying to cook for. I D-L making meals for them... SOOO, I poured myself into a realm with more potential for rave reviews... "Yummy, chocolate cake! It doesn't look lumpy, mommy, it's delicious! yum! Well, now it does..." Now, even the dog loves everything I make (desserts!).
I'm a beginner too. I read as many books as I can... order books you hear about at the library. My discovery only a few months ago of Cake Central has been an absolute wonderful thing for me!
I am also very new to this but i made my daughters first birthday cake last year and have been hooked ever since. I'm taking classes at the local cake decorating centre and going by trial and error. With 2 babies, decorating is 'me' time and I love it!!! I have a long way to go though... but it's fun learning.
I started this hobby last september. I baked and decorated my first cake with a barnyard theme for my daughter's first birthday. I had never done it before but my husband suggested that I make a special cake for our little one that would stand out from the typical grocery store cakes. That was it. I was hooked. Now I am planning her 2nd birthday cake and I am so excited. I have never taken classes but I may some day if I find enough free time. All that I have learnt is thanks to cake central.
Thank you for such a wonderful first post! <<<<<Cheryl
For me it started with my home economics class at 14. 
We had to make a fruit cake and decorate it with fondant, etc.
Feel in love 
from there............ have just started to get into buttercream but my true passion is fondant work. I love doing the intricate extension work and lace pieces, etc. Guess I just like taking my time to do somethings.
Have since taken a number of classes, made a lot of cake, been responsible for keeping Weight Watchers in business. 
Must admit though I left the cakes behind for about 4 years when my 
ex kept complaining that it took time away from him. 
Now he is gone and my BF is working on business plan for my new company. 
i started when i made my first decorated cake for my son back in 1995, he is now 17. i only made cakes for family and friends, which was one every couple of months or so. i never really did them on a constant basis just when birthdays came around. i have never taken any classes. everything i've learned is through books, this site, and practice, practice, practice. i now do cakes every week. the most i've done in one week was around eight. i remember getting so frustrated with making bc roses, now i'm a pro at it and am tired of doing it. i want to take classes at the wilton school. my DH said he would help me pay for it...so excited about that! i think the best thing to do is buy the books that have easy instructions and purchase the basic tools needed. then just continue to practice! 
First, welcome to CC Becky!! My addiction to cake decorating started a couple of years ago. I had spent SO much time planning my parents big 50th anniversary party. I wanted everything to be perfect....but we ordered a grocery store cake - that was the only thing I was disappointed with. Right after that, I picked up some cake decorating books from the library and started practicing. Bought some supplies, took some classes, and the rest is history! Good luck and happy baking!
I just also got into cake baking in the last couple of weeks, I've a 2 and 3 year old and wanted a hobby that I could do, whilst they are at daycare twice a week and also something for me to do just for me time, I also got tired of paying for someone else to make the cake.
I've only brought the basic's with piping and I've already learnt alot by coming on here, I think at the moment my calling is with fondant since I'm sooo not good at covering a cake with bc and making it look all smooth etc. I'm also going to be going on a couple of courses this year and hope do to more next year.
Rach
I started decorating cakes about 12 years ago because of my daughters peanut allergy. She was being invited to birthday parties at which she couldn't eat the cakes because they were done in a bakery (all contaminated with nuts!) So, my pans being "clean", I started doing the cakes - and learned a little. In 2000, I started taking professional courses in Toronto, Ontario. Then some Wilton...then a couple of bakery jobs...now I'm a Wilton Instructor. This spring I will finish off my "Professional" courses. This craft is in my blood now, absolutely love the creativity of it. I do something "cake" pretty much every day.
wow! thanks for all the replies, ladies! i KNEW you were all a great bunch!!!
it's interesting to hear everyone's backstory. i see a common theme of us having young children and not wanting to pay for the grocery store cakes year after year! i just made my older two sons' cakes in the past week for their birthdays. i'm hoping that when school starts back up (next week), i'll be able to dive into this a little more fully. of course, there's always my 9-month-old who may decide otherwise!
My Dad is a garage sale Junkie, a few years ago he bought me a bunch of "vintage" Strawberry Shortcake items he found at a sale including a character pan. I decided to make it for my DD's b-day -six hours later I was hooked. I later bought a Wilton yearbook and started experimenting and things just took off from there. I just wish I could do more cakes but no one asks me to make them 
my grandfather started a cake decorating apprenticeship when he was 7, and that was back in like, 1942. he still decorates to this day. out of the 10 grandchildren he had, i was the only one who he ever asked to help, and i was hooked from the beginning. i learned to make drop flowers at 13 but never really did anything on my own until 2006. i was an art major in college and he knew right from the beginning that cakes would be perfect fo me.
Well, here's my story and I was just thinking about it recently!
Way back in high school, I guess I was about 16, I was dating a guy who was a junior firefighter and for his 18th birthday, I decided to make him a cake in the shape of his truck....so, what I did was bake a few cake layers and cut and shaped them into the firetruck....that was my first experience with the red icing issue....couldn't have a PINK fire truck!!! Somewhere in a box, I probably still have those pictures.
Fast forward to 1989, my DD was about to turn 2 and I found the old Big Bird cake pan, I did that for her b-day party. Fast forward, again, to about 1995 or 6, my DS wanted a fire truck cake....so this time, I went out and got the Wilton SUV pan and made that into a fire truck.
Now, just over a year ago, after having gotten rid of those 2 pans and a cabbage patch kid pan, I was at a garage sale and found a very basic Ateco decorating set, no coupler but a rotten bag and 6 tips. Not long after that I was in the Goodwill store and found a retired Winnie the Pook Pan. DD was about to turn 19 and is such a Pooh freak, so I went to Wilton's website, got the pan directions, headed to Wal-Mart, got couples and gel colours and I made her Winnie! I've been investing in this ever since. I am still a hobby baker/decorator (it's a major pain to get legal in NY) but everyone who sees or gets one of my cakes, just raves!
I've also branched out to do cookies, candy and cupcakes....I am highly addicted.
I never took a class....am self taught, get alot of info here (way too much time on CC) and Wilton's site.
Toni Ann
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