I made a beautiful dessert cake last night with a perfectly straight basketweave around it. And then I turn around and make it look less than perfect with "Happy Birthday Debbie" on it. Sometimes my handwriting is spot on and sometimes it seriously stinks. I can write on the SIDE of a cake no sweat. But for some reason writing on the top of cakes is painful for me

I can write pretty good, but I don't like writing on cakes. I will take a "before" picture of the cake most of the time before I write on it. All parties involved know why they are celebrating whatever they are celebrating without any words on a cake IMO.

Me either. My writing always is slanted no matter how I try.

I refuse to ruin one of my creations with writing and will tell them upfront. If they insist on writing, I will deliver the cake and bring them bagged icing to write with. They have NEVER put it on there. LOL

I will write on a sign I put ON the cake, or on the cake board. But NOT on my cakes. LOL

I can't write "freehand" on a cake to save my life!! I use the italic letter press from Wilton or the regular letter press for kids cakes and just put the dots around the letters to make it more "fun" on the kiddie cakes

Oh and don't you just LOVE the people that want you to write and darn greeting card on the cake but you only have 3 square inches to actually write anything at all...LOL!

few tricks I use for writing

- practice on a plate first to get the spacing correct
- place a piece of parchment or wax paper to use as a guide for a straight line under your writing
- use a very small piping bag, so you can hold it more like a pencil
- use a cake board large enough so you can write your words on the cake board in front of or around the cake, you can wipe it off and try again if you don't like it
- I have a set of alphabet cutters that I use to cut out fondant letters. These look neat slightly standing up on the cake. (I cut them out and let them dry then use a small dab of icing to prop them up on the cake)

I feel the same way, I have good handwriting, but can't seem to pipe a message on my cakes worth anything! I haven't tried this yet, but it sounds like a great idea that could help:

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-666968-perfect.html+font

If you give me a practice board, plate, napkin, whatever... you'd give me an A+ for penmanship. For some reason, when I write directly on the cake, I fail.

Get some wafer paper and edible markers. Failproof. Cut and snip until you have it perfectly cut out.

That's why I like wedding cakes better than birthday cakes, no writing! (Except the one with the vows written all over the sides, but thankfully no one has ever asked me to do that one!).

I hate it. I've tried almost everything and it still looks bad. I heard there was a way to use sugarveil and I am going to give that a try. I also did go to that other link last week and I could not figure out how to download the fonts - I could never get it to work.

Aw, you are sweet. Thank you. And YES I had a bad day. It doesn't help that I wrote on the cake with one of those stupid Wilton colored icing tubes with #3 tip. I ran out of my white buttercream for another dessert cake and didn't have enough left over to do the writing on THIS cake. I ran out to Hobby Lobby and tried to do things the down and dirty way. Never again.

I use a cheap laser level from walmart to shine a straight line across the cake to get the writing perfectly level.

I also will print things out on the edibe image sheets and make a "plaque" or just place the edible image on there and do a little trim around it.

I've been on a rampage about writing on cakes lately...it never fails that the people who order a 6" cake want something like "Happy 37th Birthday! Love Alexandria, Christopher & Danielle" - I was joking that we should charge $20 for ay inscriptions on cakes!

I print out the lettering I want and then with piping gel traced on the back of the letters, place this on the cake. It leaves a clear outline of the lettering. Then I pipe on top of the gel with the icing. (Someone on CC made this suggestion). Examples on my cakes in the photos...

another way like the piping gel method is to write something out on a piece of board in reverse. you can use a pencil on tracing paper then turn it over and trace over onto a board and the pencil outline will appear. then use stiff royal icing and pipe the outline. let it dry as RI goes really stiff and you can use this to impress the lettering into soft fondant - bit like the wilton things but it means you can use any style of writing and make it bigger or smaller rather than sticking to the lettering sets. This works the same if you wanted to make an impression mat. pipe like lines or brick work onto a piece of pastillage or a plaque and when its hardened use it to impress into fondant

[quote="Loucinda"]I use a cheap laser level from walmart to shine a straight line across the cake to get the writing perfectly level.

/quote]

Hi Cindy,

Great tip! Who is the manufacturer and what section in Walmart did you find yours?

TIA
Veronica

I'm none too good at writing on cakes, either, though I'll keep nonilm's tips in mind, as well as Loucinda's suggestion to get a laser level. My favorite way to put writing on a cake lately is to extrude a long round cord of fondant with my clay extruder and make letters out of it by cutting and shaping. They can be as plain or as fancy as you want, and once they´re all laid out and the same size, then you can put them on the cake. I also have a set of letter cutters that I use to make letters out of fondant, if there's not too much writing to be done (my cutters are kind of large!).

I refuse to write on a cake, because like some of you have mentioned, it ruins anything that I have worked hours on, as soon as I try to write on it!
My solution..... tappits!!! I have upper and lower and funky... I just love them!! I even make up extras and keep them in a container so that they are all ready to paint/color when ever I need them!!
as far as I'm concerned, tappits are the best tool ever invented for cake decorating!!

here's a good place to find them: http://www.countrykitchensa.com/catalog/product.aspx?productId=633139

I am lucky (if I do say so myself )
I can write really well with a piping bag... BUT give me a pen or a pencil and it looks horrible! My sister's make fun of me all the time because I can write on cakes and not on paper..
Jodi

I, for one, am glad that some folks still insist on writing on cakes. If not for these people, Cake Wrecks would not exist and I would lose much of the joy out of my twisted life.

I can't write evenly on cakes to save my life! I have beautiful handwriting, I even do Calligraphy, but can I do it on a cake???

Heck No!

So I have come to love tappits, alphabet cutters and I recently bought a new Cricut and have been practicing with it to see if I can use it for fondant letters and shapes, so far not having 100% luck with it so may have to spring for the Cricut Cake one of these day, maybe when the price drops a little, keeping my fingers crossed!

I'll second cdgleason's comment about Tappits!!!!
Though my handwriting is decent...the cleaner lines of fun fondant letters that coordinate the cake's details is my preferred way to go!!

one nice thing about the tappits, you can color them easily.. then while the fondant/gumapaste is still damp from coloring... I almost always embelish mine with some sort of glitter or petal dust so that the letters are a little extra sparkly!!

Writing really can make or break a cake. Been there, done that....especially when I was first starting. I would get so frustrated. Writing can be one of the hardest things to master. But, even after all these years of experience...I now can write on cakes freehand, but I prefer to use my KopyKake projector. I make the message on my computer, in whatever font I want. Pop that into the projector, project down on the cake and trace the lettering with a pin. It is perfectly done, perfectly centered each time. LOVE my KK!

Jennifer