A few months ago my wee lad turned one, and it seems to be tradition at his creche to bring a cake. I started looking through my kids cake book, and it just took off like a steam train... I couldn't seem to stop myself! Looking at books, websites, talking to people. It was like being hit with a fever! I'm still in the grip of this fever, and it's all consuming. My husband told me off tonight for thinking more about cakes than anything else. Which I must admit made me feel bad, I do think a LOT about cakes.

So.... what's your story, how did you get addicted? Does your S.O. tell you off for taking up too much space in the kitchen, or spending too much time doing it? I know that for some of you it's a way to make money, I guess that would ease the pain a little.

About a year and a half ago, I came across a video on Youtube. I was impressed and wanted to do it right away. Now, all my spending has gone to cakes, haha.

I always loved baking and back in February I made my son's birthday cake. I loved doing it and then everyone wanted to start buying the stuff that I did, so I decided to become legal. I still have the fever!

I started almost 10 years ago when I thought it would be fun to make my son's first birthday cake...It snowballed from there.I started my home business about 7 years ago....Hubby has built me a cake room and all so I have my own space...

It was my girlfriend's 50th birhday last year (the same as Barbie's).And I decided to make a Barbie Cake. And it's started there..

Micheals had the classes for half off and I tought it was something that me and my teenage daughter could do together. She is my artis of the family. I come up with an ideal and she help me with it and she has come great ideal too. I believe it is the only time that we can get along together and it exploded from there. I check out all the web sited about cakes and especially cake central, I am here two three or four time a day. I love looking at all the great cakes and ideals that cc people comes up with and hope someday I will be that good.

I wanted to do my daughter's first birthday cake and the madness took off from there!! My story is very similar to yours zespri...

I wanted to take a class...and my over possesive husband just threw the biggest fit!! He didnt understand that my children were growning up and I had less and less to do....I needed a hobby. HE forbid me to take the class....I moved out and signed up. Long story short....I started the classes and moved home after 6 weeks and enrolled in the next class.
I worked in Dentistry for 20 years and it was just the "hobby" for me. THEN....I was bucked off a horse and couldn't work....then cake decorating became therapy. 3 short years later I have moved from hobby in my home, to leasing a catering kitchen....to opening and running with both my daughters a busy cake shop on our main street!! That is my story.
Yes, HE is still my husband....supports me fully, and now lets me persue almost anything I want.
Laura
A Sweet Success

I started when my first grandchild was on the way. I thought it would be wonderful to make beautiful cakes for my grandchild. Now that all my kids were out of the house I have more time to do things I want to do and I had been looking at books at Michael's & JoAnne's. So I took the Wilton classes at JoAnne's and I was hooked!!! My husband is great about it. He is very supportive and gives me lots of encouragement. (I think he's happy I have something that keeps me occupied so he can watch what he wants on TV). I am having a storage problem. I'm the kind of person that has to have everything you might need on hand. My "craft room" was already full of scrapbooking stuff and now I have boxes and boxes of cake stuff sitting on the floor. My computer is in my craft room and my husband says it's like an obstacle course to get to me to kissing me good night when he goes to bed and I'm on the Cake Central looking at cake photos! So I see no problem with my obsession, DH is happy, I'm happy and everyone gets cake!!!

I saw the Food Network special on OSSAS back in 2004. I couldn't believe what a work of art cake could be. I knew that those beauties would be out of my reach as a decorator but didn't care, I was that head over heels for decorating. And I still am.

well I have to pipe in since no one has this story- I worked in a grocery store bakery as a clerk, then an opening came up for decorator, I got some basic training & found I had a natural ability for it. That was 10 years ago though, there was no fondant, mostly sheet cakes and round party cakes, but I became a pro at torting, filling, icing and decorating cakes.
After I graduated college & got a M-F "real" job, I didn't think much of cake decorating. I made a few here & there.
Then I discovered CC and my first attempt at fondant, stacked tiers etc was for my niece's first birthday. It took off from there! It is my artistic outlet & I absolutely love creating cakes.

I posted this thread last night right before I went to bed, it's so cool to wake up to all these responses! Lots of similar stories to mine I see, with birthdays being the catalyst. As I read the bits about what your hubby's thought of it, I realised that mine is only grumpy because we have a very young family. If it was at a different stage of life then I think he'd be better about it. So I'm on a mission to get more balance, but how will I ever stop thinking aout cakes day and night..?? I even dream about cakes!

Lets just say I fell in love with it again. I started 30 years ago, when I was first married. My mother in law did cakes and she taught me what she knew. It was a chance to bond with my mother in law and it was fun. Back then cakes were all buttercream, alot of garlands and stringwork. Buttercream flowers. I got so tired of those cakes. I quit decorating cakes for quite a while. I now have a renewed interest in cakes. Love the fondant, gumpaste flowers, modeling figures, its a chance to be more creative. And too, all the new things I have learned on cc has made decorating so much easier.

I enjoyed baking when I was growing up, but it was never a big thing. Then when I went to college I lived in the dorms and we didn't have a kitchen. I was going crazy and all I wanted to do was cook something.

When I met my now DH during my second semester he had a kitchen and he said I could use it, but his roommates would probably want to share. I made cupcakes from a mix without a mixer (except a big wooden spoon) and was so happy that I'd gotten a chance to bake. Then I started looking at pictures online and learning.

After I'd learned a little bit I tried a scratch cake and then eventually tried making my own buttercream. By my sophomore year of college we had a kitchen and I was baking for my roommates. It just sort of took off from there. I did my first cake for my great-grandmother's birthday. Now I do a lot of cupcakes and occasionally cakes (cupcakes are easier to give away). I would love to open my own shop someday, but for now it's just a hobby.

DH doesn't care about the space it takes up because I don't have a ton of stuff and most of it gets stored in the dining room. He's very encouraging and loves taking my cupcakes to work with him.

I'd been baking and cooking for years but never decorated. I was in my local Michael's with a friend about six months before my daughter's wedding and the Wilton instructor was doing a demo (those cute mummy cupcakes) and I decided then and there that I was going to make her wedding cake (it's Cat's Wedding Cake in my photos, the one with the gumpaste stargazer lilies) and signed up on the spot. I started with course 1 and did all four courses and then my instructor did an additional class on gumpaste flowers that I took. I figured at the time I'd learn what I needed to make the wedding cake and be done with it. Not so! I'm completely hooked!

I have always loved baking. Back in February I told my husband that I wanted to take a cake decorating class. He told me what are you waiting for.
I have since taken all four Wilton classes. I absolutely love this hobby!

I look back at my son's B-day cakes and think maybe I was meant to do this all along. Each year I tried to do something different for him. I now have my nieces and nephews requesting cakes months in advance.

I also started with a birthday cake for my son, when he was 3. (4yrs ago) I didn't actually bake that one, I used a step by step design from a book I got from my local library. (It's the train one in my pics) (I think it actually is titled "the one that started it all"!) It was basically a selection of pre packaged chocolate log rolls in varying sizes, cut and arranged on the board. It was the first time I ever made a batch of buttercream.

My family were really impressed with it, and custom cakes were yet to become as popular as they have in the past couple of years. So the train seemed really impressive to them, as we don't know of anyone who does cake decorating. So that was the one that started it all. The seed was planted from there. I carried on after that only making cakes for my kids, and it wasn't until a friend asked me to do a cake for her son 2 years ago that I started to make them for other people too.

I think my caking passion would have really taken off after that one, but it was at that time that we fell pregnant with my little boy, who is now 17months. It was a hideous pregnancy, I was so sick, and I was almost bedridden the entire time, so I forgot about it for a while.

I didn't even do any for anyone, until lil man turned a year old in May of this year, and it has seriously been snowballing since then!
Word is spreading fast, and I am slowly starting to get requests from people who I dont know

This summer has been soo busy!

It has proved a problem sometimes with the kids, like you say Zespri, my DH gets a little peeved sometimes, and did suggest I would have to give up the caking if I was going to be so grouchy when a cake is due. "I thought this was supposed to be fun" he would say He thinks I should wait a couple of years until the kids are up a bit.

But no way am I stopping this, I am seriously addicted now, its like a runaway freight train, and I also think about cakes all the time too, even in my dreams

It's funny that you should say that, because I'm a sleep talker, and I'm worried that I talk about them in my sleep! DH already thinks I'm obsessed, he'd be putting his foot down if I started chattering about them while I was sleeping. Apparently last night I chattered for nearly five minutes, but he didn't say it was anything about cakes... *whew*

Quote:

Originally Posted by MamaD77

I also think about cakes all the time too, even in my dreams

Ha ha!
That's funny! It does feel so weird though to be thinking about cakes all the time, I was starting to get a little concerned about my new obsession, but luckily you started this thread and now I feel a bit better

I have actually ordered business cards this week at the insistence of my friends, because they've seen all of my cakes, and want me to develop my passion further, which is weird to me, but so exciting!

They're just to have on me, in case anyone asks me about my cakes. I wont be advertising or placing the cards anywhere. I'd have to be legal first, but I don't feel I'm quite ready for that stage yet (both in terms of ability and my son is only still a baby really) my kids need me right now. I'm happy to be doing average of one cake every 3-4 weeks or so, for friends at cost. It's enough for me to satisfy the creative itch!

We'll see what happens in the future, the kids are only young once, and I really have to keep remembering that.