I always put my cakes in a box or carrier and I've come up with some goofy looking boxes over the years to protect cakes. I live out in the country and deliver all my cakes. I keep rubber shelf liner in the back of my Expedition to set them on so they don't move. I love that stuff!

Lazy_Susan, you do great cakes and NO you won't quit! Just step back and see what you can glean from this thread and forget the rest. Personally I like to use white cake boxes which I buy pretty cheaply at a hobby house in a neighboring city (30 mi away). AND since most of my cakes go to friends and aquaintainences (sp?!?) I generally get my big boxes and heavy boards back. The smaller stuff I don't care about. I'm not a professional, I just do cakes because I enjoy it so much. Personally I like delivering my cakes in clean white boxes when I can. If they're for an extra special occassion and I'm not setting it up I'll put some curly ribbon around the box, just as an extra touch. We all find our own special touches, I think.

I have to tell this even if I have before. When my dd got married 11 years ago we had a nice little old German Baptist lady make her cake. She did beautiful work and lived out in the country a ways from here. My aunt who does a lot of cakes in CA (and would have loved to do Dana's but couldn't because of the distance) waited at the reception site to help with set up etc. The lady and her husband drove in in their old car with all the windows down (it was June) and my aunt thought "oh no, it's in there in the heat with no ac...." Then they get out and open the trunk and there's each tier in a cardboard flat with no box or plastic to cover them. My aunt almost had a stroke...LOL She examined each one for any dirt etc and there wasn't a speck of anything on those buttercream cover cakes. The cake was just beautiful when set up and tasted just as wonderful. The funniest thing to me was that my aunt waited years to tell me about this. She was here just a couple of weeks ago and we laughed about it all over again. It's a small miracle those cakes got there in the pristine condition they did.

I have to agree with adven68. Take a break, and later when you are comfortable with it, come back to cake decorating.

Last month, I did a guitar cake, which was much too big to fit in my car, and too big for any box. I was delivering it myself across the road, to a friend's house. So I put it in the trunk... (which is empty and spotlessly clean). But I felt very uncomfortable about it and I told myself, "Never again will a cake leave my house without a box". Now I buy card paper and make the odd-shaped boxes myself.

Take the advice (About the BOX!) Risque gave you, it was good, don't think of it as criticism.


Karen

First of all, most of us knew the gist of your post Susan....you sent a cake and you were worried about how it would travel. You could have wrapped it in plastic wrap and doweled it and putting it in the trunk is not going to save that...it could slide or tip over.

She read a negative attitude because you have one....the constantly knocking in to people around here how much of a professional you are is wearing on everyone's nerves. How many times do we have to hear it...and yes you are rough around the edges, but you could have some tact in how you reply to people.

Everyone has an opinion of whats professional or not....me personally, don't think a big naked lady holding a cake on a front page of a website is professional....just my opinion...

And I have to add,

Risque, maybe you should re-read all your posts over the last few weeks. Many of them have not been polite, and when someone criticises your tone, you dismiss it with "I'm a little rough around the edges" or something to that effect.

That is not an excuse.

Karen

man what a bummer to read such a spiteful post...maybe you ladies should step away from the cake central forum and take a break....its just a forum, ....you don't HAVE to state your opinion and start drama...now there are personal stabs at peoples professionalism and its heated!

if someone starts a rude, negative post, you dont have to fuel the drama, that is probably the only reason they do it...they get a rise out of it...if you just ignore them, they will probably stop!





lazy susan...i have to deliver my cakes just for this reason! i get too worked up over it making it there!! even if i did cover and dowell and everything...im a worry wart!


(ps. i dont read every post so maybe ive missed something, but it just seems silly either way)

I don't have any problems with risque's post... I think it is blunt and to the point. Maybe it is just because I am the same way. I have been yelled at many times for being blunt but I see it as why should I sugar coat things, sometimes people need to hear the things that they don't want to listen to.

Anyways I think we should get back on topic and not worry if risque's post it too rough or not.

I was noticing on Ace of Cakes ( Duff) that he puts all of his cakes into the back of his van..... and I have NEVER seen one box. My first thought was ...GROSS. But who makes the big bucks for making cakes??? He does. To each his own.

Let's all be nice

As someone who really struggles to actually get cake boxes in this country, I sympathise with you Susan! Dutch bakeries only bake one layer (2in) cakes, and the boxes available reflect that! As I bake two layer (4in) deep cakes, these are neither use nor ornament to me! I recently had to import 5in deep boxes from the UK, and they cost me £40 (about $75!) in postage alone, and for as small a home-based business as I am, it's a huge cost to absorb and still make a profit! I have in the past used ordinary cardboard boxes, and I still send sheet cakes out in cardboard fruit crates covered with plastic wrap because I can't buy sheet cake boxes! You do the best you can with what you have available - and I've never had a complaint and my customers are always complimentary (and lots come back!). Susan, don't give up what you love to do, please!

Risquebusiness - I distinctly remember reading in one of your recent posts that you regard homebakers as just that, and not professional unless they had licenses and/or shop fronts - so, which is it?!

I also have to agree that too many posts on here are disintergrating into slanging matches lately - this used to be such a nice place.

You know, I have never posted to a thread gone bad, but I just can't sit still anymore. When I read Risque's post, my jaw dropped. I would have reacted exactly like Susan did--crushed. It was completely uncalled for. Just because one has an opinion, you don't have a license to run someone in the ground. SOME THINGS ARE BETTER KEPT TO ONE'S SELF!!!

Like someone else posted, there seems to always be an underlying "tone" in her posts! (harping on professionalism???!) brother!

My heart goes out to you Susan. Please don't stop baking or posting.

Lisa

Nothing I have to say here is more important than being careful of the feelings of others. But that's just me. It's the easiest thing in the world to say what we want because we have the right to say it, but it takes more character to discern whether it will be hurtful to do so. And once the words are out you can't take them back, or the impact they made.

Come on LazySusan - you're a woman not a mouse! We have been through far more than this in the history of womenhood - this is one tiny weeny setback and you're taking one comment far too seriously. Hold your head up, get back to work and forget about it!

Ya know I read this thread through n through, and susan, hun. Ya didn't start anything that ya need to worry bout. Some of us have the same reservations about how our masterpieces are treated. Whether they are boxed or not. We put our sweat, tears and frosting into these works of art, only to have someone who is unfamiliar with how cakes should be handled scare the bleep outta us.
I know some blunt criticism (constructive or otherwise, not my place to judge) was leveled in your direction, but don't give up hun.
The cake decorating bug will come back n bite you again and watch out world........
Sometimes you look at a blank white cake n all you see is a polar bear in a blizzard but other days your creativity flows and you see the universe through a childs eyes.
So, darlin, chin up; all's well that ends well.
Go out with the girls n have some java n a donut. Flip throught the hobby lobby circular and don't worry bout cakes for now. Just have fun doin whatever makes you happy.

This thread is locked.. enough negative posts have been made.

I am going to clear a few things up here.

Cake Central is a place for positive reinforcement.

BLUNT is not a positive characteristic online. In a community like this, TACT is necessary. Constructive Criticism is fine, but when giving it, it is a good idea to re-read what you are about to post and consider the ways it might be taken. Assume people are sensitive, SUGAR COATING IS GOOD.

Anyone who doesn't agree should re-consider before posting in a community like this.

As I have said before , the peace and harmony of this community takes priority over anyone's perceived freedom of speech, and I have little reservation about removing members who can't take the feelings of others into consideration.

Everyone who reads this should consider this a warning. This message is not being directed at any one person. PLAY NICE AND GET ALONG OR GO SOMEWHERE ELSE.

We work too hard to provide this community to have it poisoned with bickering.