Someone had faith in me

I had a lady come in one day with a tiny picture of a baby Winnie the Pooh and Tigger hugging. She said she came to the bakery before and the cake decorator was able to draw Winnie the Pooh pretty well. So I took on the challenge. It didn't really take all that long to do. People walked by me and told me I did a really good job and it looked precious. I'm hoping it was OK to do this since our store does have the right to sell other Winnie the Pooh novelty cakes.

Continue reading...

I got a hold of a Wilton book

After awhile I felt like I was running out of ideas, always doing the same borders and flowers. When I found a copy of The Wilton School I took a look at it and went off to try some new things. I wanted to learn the basket weave. Even though it can be pretty time consuming, I figured it would be something people would appreciate if they wanted something special. The basket border on this isn't the greatest, but I like how the cake turned out overall. I keep working on the basket weave and understanding how each part comes together.

Continue reading...

Blogger turned my picture sideways

I'll be honest, I don't know much about flowers. Sometimes when people as me to put flowers other than roses on a cake I have to ask what they're talking about. I was given a picture of a pink something, I think it's a daisy, and told to make the whole top of a round cake that flower.

I think it turned out pretty well. I didn't want to take too long on it, so many of the petals cake out rippled when I squeezed too hard on the icing bag. I certainly think it was a nice idea for a cake.

Continue reading...

A personal cake

I made this cake for my boyfriend's church. The cake says Bless Shiloh Apostolic. My writing was still a little suspect at the time. I sprayed the body yellow and added a slight bit of brown over that. I piped on a bunch of grapes and vines over the edge. It's a chocolate cake with some cherry filling.

Continue reading...

I was trying to show off

For the opening of the baseball season my boss told me to decorate a full sheet cake for an in-store promotion. Make one side for the Chicago Cubs, and one for the White Sox. She might have just meant use their colors, but I took it further and drew their logos on each side of the cake.

However, I got the coloring on the Cubs logo wrong. There should be a blue ring instead of a red one. I don't know if this will get me in trouble, but I'll say that I did not create these logos, I just used them for a cake that was not sold to anyone. And people enjoyed it and ate it up. The Sox side was gone first.

Continue reading...

Cupcake cake

At Meijer the bakery offers cupcake cakes as a fun alternative to rectangular cakes. Cupcakes are arranged on a board, frosted, and decorated to look like something.

I did a caterpillar cake for a group of school children. I had an image to work off of to arrange the cupcakes right and how to decorate it. I made it look a little cuter and added sprinkles as well.

Continue reading...

Stir the imagination

Meijer has a pretty good selection of baked goods, but when it comes to cakes it can be pretty straight forward. With our cupcakes we only have chocolate and yellow cake to choose from. Most people just want white butter cream and some sprinkles. A mother came in one day with her smart and talented little son, ordering cupcakes for a party. They wanted me to be creative with the colors, and I was compelled to do something special for them.


I made bags of striped icing just for their cupcakes. Red and pink, yellow and orange, green and teal, blue and violet. And colorful sprinkles topped each cupcake. I was very happy with these and thought they would certainly appeal to little children.

Continue reading...

Copyright issues

As a cake decorator I get plenty of requests for designs and concepts for cakes. Most of the time people will just point at a novelty cake in the book and say they want that one. Some people will be vague and only tell me what colors they want, or they want flowers. People have also given me pictures to use with our Edible Images scanner and printer, or asked me to simply draw certain things. I am pretty good at drawing, and it's easy enough to use the scanner and printer. But it has come up recently at work that I need to be much more careful about what I let people put on cakes. It's unlikely to be much of an issue with cakes that will just be taken home and enjoyed by a small family. But you just want to protect yourself wherever you can. I've made cakes in the past that used images from cartoons, logos of sports teams, and also designs on napkins or paper plates. I've taken pictures of these, but I've decided not to post them if I believe there will be an issue with copyrights.

Continue reading...

Out of school

When I was finished with school it took me a little less than a month to get a job. Unfortunately it had nothing to do with food service. I worked as a pricer at a Meijer superstore in Michigan City. I applied for jobs in restaurants all over the city and surrounding areas. Most places either wouldn't consider me, or they only wanted me to be a waitress or hostess. At some places I probably could have earned a decent amount of money through tips, but I've found that being a server makes me incredibly anxious. I like to think that maybe I could learn to enjoy it and deal with customers, but for now I won't go near it. I took the job at Meijer, despite the low pay and crappy hours. I figured maybe at least being in there would give me a better chance at a better job later on.

And lo, about 4 months later I was able to transfer into the store's bakery as a cake decorator...

Continue reading...

Birthday pie

When I made a cake for my mom I also decided I wanted to make a pie for my boyfriend's birthday. The bakery technically offers pies but they were rarely bought. So they got me some blueberries and looked for a decent pie crust recipe. We didn't have anything as far as pie fillings went, so I had to wing that.

I did a simple lattice design with a fresh blueberry filling. The pie is sitting in 2 deep dish pie plates, because to this day my pies over flow and make a mess on the tray they're sitting on. I was told, fill it up, the filling will bake down! More like out and over. It was really good, the berries held their shape and flavor well. It was so good I was asked to make another pie later for the bakery's display. I'm not sure if that tasted as good as the first one I made, but I was glad that I was given something to do besides bake more cookies.

Continue reading...