Hello there, just wanted to get an idea how long on average does it take you to complete a decorated cake. Not counting the baking time- just from the time you lay your crumb-coat to the final product. I've been coming along with this but it always takes me anywhere between 4 hours and up. Is that normal, or does it get quicker with time. By the time I finish, every muscle in my body aches.

It takes me about 3- 4 hours too, not counting the time it takes me to make roses or other flowers in advance. But then I am just a beginner. I think I could decorate faster with practice or if I am in a hurry to finish the cake My muscles hurt too because of standing and leaning over the counter while decorating. I need to get me a small table with a chair or something

It seems like no matter what size cake I do, or how I decorate it, I always end up spending about 2 hours. Not counting clean-up. (I only do buttercream, so I'm sure fondant would be more time consuming.)

You will get faster as time goes. It depends on the cake I am doing how long it takes. The bathtub cake in my photos took about 4 hours, but there are alot of bubbles there. Some things I have found to help "speed" things up is to have my buttercream made ahead of time. I cand make it in the morning or the night before and it seems to help. An easier cake may take me any where from 1 to 2 hours.

One thing I found that helped me alot is to wear Crocks while I am decorating. I actually bought the ones at Payless for like $12 instead of the real ones that are quite a bit higher. If I wear them my feet and legs do not hurt.

HTH
Melissa

I spend most of my time getting the frosting smooth. The tinkerbell cake I recently did was made to resemble a tree stump so that was a breeze!!

It seems like it takes me forever to decorate a cake. But I think most of my time is spent on making and coloring the icing or fondant. The baking and assembly are the quick parts!

it takes me hours! i am new too, and kinda a perfectionist. i like to have everything just right, which means it takes me even longer than i think it should in some cases. especially getting the icing smooth and making roses, lol.

I hear ya my perfectionist sister!! Trust me, when I say "quick part" that is still probably 3 hours!!

Without baking the average time for one of my carved cake sculptures is six hours. (Usually that is down and dirty. Just get the job done.)

It has been as short as four hours, but also as long as 18 hours. This does not include any premade flowers of any type or IMHO anything really difficult......otherwise I would scare the newbie's





Edited for spelling

I would say it takes me about 3 hrs for a cake with simple decorations. More for fondant and lots of colors etc. I don't even want to talk about the clean-up