I've been working as head cake decorator at a local grocery store bakery for the last year or so with a little under two year cake experience.

I recently had an order at the bakery where a customer brought in a photo of a two tiered fondant birthday cake with the top layer covered in detailed lace patterns and she wanted replicated for her daughter's birthday. However, she requested it to be done in the whipping icing.

Ugh...the mere thought of trying to make a whipped icing cake look anywhere near as polished and nice as a fondant cake makes my head hurt. I think I'm good at my job but I'm not THAT good.

For those who are unfamiliar with the evil creation that is whipped icing, it is essentially cool whip. A bit heavier, but the basic taste and consistency is the same. For those who find buttercream too sweet, whipping icing is a good choice. It makes the BEST strawberry short cakes you will EVER have.

However, it makes for a horrible decorating medium. And the Alabama heat does little to help.

I told the lady the while I could do it in whipped icing, it was almost guaranteed to look horrible and implored her that if she wanted her cake to look anything like the photo, her best option was to go with buttercream. She refused and insisted she wanted the whipped icing.

Well, I did the cake up and later the next day, the customer came by to pic up her cake and *shock* she didn't like the cake.

So that was a waste of time, effort, and money. My only consolation was that by not listening to me she is now without a cake - good luck finding a last minute cake in THIS town- and her daughter actually wanted the cake and said it was pretty. My boss even knocked a few dollars off the price! But she said no and walked off. I think her daughter was giving her the evil eye...

I just wish customers would listen to me when I tell them something like 'if you want this design in whipped, you will hate it' but rarely do they.

<sigh>..... that's it... just <sigh>

Next time you should just tell the customer that you can't make the design requested with whipped icing and suggest vanilla buttercream instead. We used to fulfill requests for whipped icing for decorated cakes, but it is such a pain to work with we eventually just stopped offering it.

I've had customers not listen to my recommendations -- and made it VERY clear that they will bite it on those decisions, not me! I have one couple who always gets the same cake every year -- with chocolate dipped strawberries on top. Which is great in July when it's strawberry season, but not in November when it's not. Long story short, the strawberries molded almost immediately after getting dipped in chocolate. And that's how they got their cake. I did everything I could to talk them out of it. Now they had to live with it. Oh well.

Being my own boss, I can actually say "no" when I know something won't work. And I have said "no."