Well there is if your me lol. I'm so new to baking and it's almost like all the things we made and decorated when we first started were all beginners luck. The last 3 "orders" (we bake only for friends and family) have brought me to the brink of tears. We continue to press on and learn as much as we possibly can before we do something but the bumps in the road happen. What's crazy is that even though it seems impossible and like what can go wrong does go wrong each order has turned out just like I had it pictured in my mind. I'm struggling with making a present box tier topper. This is our fourth attempt and I'm hoping that using the green wet foam (for flowers), buttercream and fondant work or else I may lose my mind lol. 

I love cake central I've read and read on here and without it I'm not sure if I would have survived the last few weeks haha. In all seriousness I love baking and decorating and the moment I see or hear that people love what we've made I'm ready to do it all over again :)

The first time I worked with fondant I sobbed.    It turned out so ugly that I had to scrap the whole design and come up with a different one on the fly......thankfully it was just a cake for a neighbor (freeeeeeeee cake) so I had total creative authority.   BUT.....it was ridiculously frustrating. (Read traumatizing) I vowed to never touch fondant again! (LIE) 

I find when trying a new technique, that the more tutorials I watch, the better it goes.  I am able to heed warnings and kind of get a sense as to what to expect.....granted, they still don't always end up the best, at least I feel somewhat in control of my cake as opposed to feeling like I am cursed by the cake gods ;)

Here is a really good tutorial on present cakes.  It is SO long, but SO good.   I don't know if you have the time to check it out.....but the info is really good. 

 I will definitely check it out after I post this thanks!!! I think we finally have the right square to cover. I used some not so great fondant I made awhile back and revived it enough to cover the square just to see of it was worth using my good fondant on. I didn't have enough to cover the entire thing but enough to work out the top and a whole side. I'm about 75% confident in the next attempt being the final product. 

I guess our next plan b ....although I think we've made it half way through the alphabet so we' should call it  plan "m" will be to bake a cake trim it down to the right size and cover that in fondant. I know now that probably  should have been plan a to begin with but I just didn't want the additional cake, icing and work that I originally thought a cake would require but at this point I've went above and beyond the amount of work a cake would have taken.  Who knew this custom work would be so tricky :)

I hear you about the time it takes.   For me, it is usually the "easy" cakes that take me longer than the more "complex" ones.   

I get a little too confident after tackling a hard cake that I forget that each cake can present with it's own set of time consuming issues.  

I call it cake drama 

Ps: Viva towels work great for smoothing icing, and wiping up baker tears.    

That video was sooooo helpful thank you!!!! I skipped ahead to the fondat part bc I'm already to that step and just using some of his techniques  with the double smoother (I used my fondant smoother and my bench scraper bc that's all I have on hand) and wouldn't you know it really made a huge difference in making the edges sharper. I'm still working on the corners but I'm now about 85% sure our next one will be the final product :)

maybe that's our problem too we've done a couple of really awesome cakes and forgot how much effort they all really take. And just because something appears straight forward doesn't mean it is!!! I would love to challenge anyone who thinks oh it's so easy to just cover a box in fondant to try and do it haha. We love viva here but with how much one roll cost I still to Kleenex for my tears :) 

Oh and that's exactly what they wanted was a Tiffany type box as a tier topper to the cupcakes!!! Too funny that is exactly what the video was about!!!

Who says there's no tears???  My first wedding cake was my daughter's and it was also my first stacked, my first fondant and really my first on display for any length of time.  It was a 4-tier castle.

I flew from Texas to New York for the wedding.  I had ordered fondant to be delivered to my daughter so I wouldn't have to pay to carry it on the plane.  My carry-on was all the flowers and decorations I had spent months making, along with a whole peacock worth of feathers I had bargained out of a local rancher. 

The fondant that was shipped was actually for candy centers, not cakes and I didn't have time to reorder the correct stuff.  At the time I wasn't making my own modeling chocolate so I had to hit every Wal Mart and Michael's within 50 miles and buy out all their fondant. (It was a BIG cake.)  I spent 3 days baking in my daughter's tiny apartment kitchen.  Every flat surface ended up covered with parts of cake.

The venue wouldn't allow me to set up before 10 am and I couldn't use the peacock feathers.  I under estimated the time I needed for setup so I didn't get to go with my daughter to the hairdresser and barely had time to run through the shower and get myself and my other kiddos dressed and to the church. 

There were LOTS of tears that day.  But I decided if we all could survive that (and the cake really did turn out well) that we could handle anything.  And you will too.  It's all a giant learning curve, but so far it's worth it.

I am SO glad it was a helpful tutorial!   I absolutely LOVE YouTube for cake tips.  It's now my go-to for tutorials.  Always. 

Jgifford....oh the things we do for love and cake!  I would have been hysterical!

glad it all worked out!  Xoxo

I cry ALL the time, and after 4 years and a store front I still go into every cake with self doubts like....."this is the time im gonna mess it up or drop it".....or "when is everyone going to find out im a phony and really cant decorate?".....dont drop it. 

One time when I was still a beginner I was doing a barbie cake in July and I held it in the car (mistake #1) and just bawled as I watched the buttercream just slide right off! 

It wasn't my fist and it won't be my last! I think that cake decorators are passionate about what they do so of course we are going to cry sometimes!  

Hang in there!

I think I cry, on average, for every second cake I make! Somehow they always turn out and I'm (mostly) happy with the result, but wow, the stress is sometimes crazy! 

I get what I call "cake anxiety" where I lay awake planning cake components - or worrying that I don't have a plan!

All worth it in the end though :)

So glad I'm not alone!!! I've cried over sheet cakes and thought they would hate them and they absolutely loved them, I've cried over hand piping sugar cookies and they turned out great I was very happy with them and that's rare and I've held back tears with this fondant "box" topper. But I'm proud to say that I think we've managed to make something that I can  be satisfied with how it turned out. I've learned several new techniques today from creating sharp edges and making a gunge. 

I'm insanely hard on myself and I think my own self doubt is where the mistakes really begin to happen. I also forget that a lot of people don't see things the way bakers do (or those with an artistic eye) so most of what I fret over likely is never even noticed. I will try my best to upload some pictures of the final product but it is an ordeal taking pictures from my phone sending them to put on my laptop then upload on cake central. So I often forget or don't have time to. 

One final question how many of you lay awake all night after a delivery wondering if they liked it or not lol. I'm afraid for me that will never change lol. 

Oh good grief, I drive hubby nuts! I'm always stressing out over a cake.  I have a client now who's stressed over her party. I told her "don't stress over the cake, that's my job"  and I will do it :)

I'm working on it though....

Oh the cake drama!  I've never actually shed tears over a cake but I have wanted to stick my head in the oven!  I finish and just hate what I've made or just am not satisfied and end up starting all over again and want to kick myself because it was supposed to be a quick "I can do that in my sleep" kind of cake.

Last weekend I was making a graduation cake.. I froze the cake and took it out the next day to decorate it and the cake broke down the middle!! I WAS so was upset!. I had to re bake a cake, let it cool and then freeze it! Luckily the cake turned out fine..But the stress and sleepiness nights!