Pat ---

I can so sympathize with you!! My children are grown - but i still can't get going when they are home - one is in college but now home for the summer and one is home, working, out of college and getting married in the fall and still doesn't know how to keep herself entertained!!

My general schedule whether for wedding, birthday or whatever cake - is I bake either Sunday or Monday night (I do work full time M-F), then wrap well and freeze. If its a wedding cake - and a perfect week - I will make buttercream on Tuesday, pull the cake layers from the freezer at noon on Wednesday at noon to thaw, and then level, torte and crumb coat on Wednesday night, then back to the freezer until noon Friday when they come back out and I put the final icing coat on them and assemble and decorate. Now this usually ends up being an almost all-nighter - but I'm not the faster decorater in the world either.

I hope this helps - but it does sound like you are making a lot of cake for 400+ guests. I just delivered a 5 tier wedding cake feeding 435 and a grooms cake feeding probably 80 made up of 2 half sheets but carved into a design -- and we all know they will have cake leftoever.

I had a mother of the bride last week that kept thinking she was going to order and extra full sheet grooms cake plus 2 round kitchen cakes because she just knew the 400+ servings she had ordered would not be enough!! I finally said "Look, I'm cutting my own throat here by telling you this - but you have plenty of cake with the wedding cake and grooms cake - you won't need the extra." So she backed off -- and sure enough she had almost 2/3 of the bottom 18" round tier of the wedding cake left and about 20 pieces of grooms cake, plus several pieces cut and setting on the table. So yes - I took money from my pocket by telling her she didn't need to order that much cake, but the time I save myself was invaluable!!

Suze

Well I worked down to the wire for the delivery on Saturday, but I finally finished the graduation/paisley cake - I don't know how to put the picture here in the forum, but its in my photos. Any constructive comments are welcome!! I would love to know how everyone else's cakes turned out.....

Janel

Love, Love, Love the paisley cake!! and I love those cutters - do they have a specific name or brand?

You did a fantastic job of incorporating all of the hobbies into the cake.

My cakes turned out very well - just haven't had time to download them yet and include them in my photos - it's actually been since February I think since I have had time to download new photos to CC!

But I will be back this Friday night with another wedding & grooms cake -

Fantastic job!

Suze

thank you Suze!! You need to get some new pics posted!!! slacker!! hehe!!

I got the cutters from ebay seller bluelakefox. They are sold in 2 different sets, but she will combine shipping on her items. I don't think they had a special name or a brand at all.