Hello and WELCOME. I'm really not sure that anyone but me will ever read this, but anyway - it will keep me busy (as if I don't have enough to do that already!). Hopefully this will be more than just a diary for me - I am hoping that this will be somewhere I can waffle on about the cakes and cupcakes I LOVE making.
I originally started decorating cakes when I was little more than a child (I know that sounds corny, but it's true!). I can remember making and decorating a Christmas cake when I was about 11 or 12...using royal icing in peaks to look like snow, those little plastic snowmen (yes, this WAS the 70s!!!) and some tin foil placed to look like a pond!
I carried on making cakes for fun (and for family members) and kept promising myself I would take some classes, until in 1992 - I was getting married. So, I decided (foolishly, I now realise, looking back) to make my own wedding cake. I found a wonderful shop that offered lessons in Sugarcraft, and I took several courses, in how to use fondant icing properly, how to make wedding cakes, and how to make sugar flowers. I eventually finished my wedding cake the night before the wedding (no Hen Night for me!!), and it was lovely - but it was something that someone else should have been worrying about on my wedding day - as the bride, I should have been getting myself ready, not setting up a cake at the venue a couple of hours before I was due in church. Oh well, you live and learn.
On the run up to the wedding, I had been getting as much practice as possible, making cakes for colleages and friends (who very generously paid me to do this - even though my attempts weren't that good at first). Just over a year after I got married, I gave birth to my gorgeous baby girl Grace, so I kind of let the cakes slip a bit - although I carried on making them for her and then my other daughter Alice, after she was was born in 1995.
Over the years, I've gone from one crafting project to the next, enjoying lots of them, and wanting to find something to make some extra money - when all the time, cakes were staring me in the face! I started up again a year or two ago, after discovering there was a cupcake craze that didn't seem to be going away. It hadn't really "hit" Essex, so I thought I'd make some and see how they went down at local school events and Christmas Fayres. The answer is - they were admired and enjoyed by lots of people (most of whom didn't know I had ever had a hidden passion for making and decorating cakes), and this gave me confidence to carry on.
This year seems to be more "cakey" than ever, and I am making more and more cakes, which I am really enjoying.
As for the future - well, it would be my absolute dream to have a successful business selling my creations, but we'll have to wait and see. At the moment, my main problem is that I don't have the self-confidence to charge people what I should for cakes, so the "successful business" is still a dream, and I guess will be until I get tough enough (or confident enough, or busy enough) to charge more. Well, as I said earlier, we live and learn, so "watch this blog" and hopefully 2009 will be the year I start to make my dream a reality.
I want to use this blog to showcase some of my creations, and I will always welcome feedback and comments - and if anyone is local to me, I would LOVE to let you have samples of my cakes so that you can (hopefully) verify that they taste good too. There's nothing worse than the promise of a scrummy cake by the look of it, only to be disappointed with the flavour or texture.
Baking By The Numbers
2 years ago
