Good morning, good morning, good morning!
How time flies! Can't believe how long it's been since my last blog!

I've been away with my husband and mother and father I law.  Had a lovely time I must say.  The minute I got back I need to make a start on the wedding cake I had booked in for the 30 th August, as well as a christening cake for the 31st August.  The wedding cake was a biggy for me as it was the first 'big' project for me. I've made a wedding cake before for my beautiful daughter which in comparison was quite simple.  I made that before my dreams of owning a cake business really set in.

This wedding cake was for my lovely niece.  She asked for a four tier sponge cake, with edible lace and roses!  Well, me being me couldn't just settle for any ole rose.  No, I had to go for the 'ultimate rose'.  These are very beautiful and look quite lifelike, but boy, do they take an age to make!  I didn't mind.  I quite enjoyed it.  I have tutorials on my iPad so I just sit and play and watch them as I go along. (Thank goodness for Craftsy!).

Now, as I said, I also need to make a christening cake at the same time!  Hubbie said maybe I should have taken it on but what kind of cake maker would I be if I could only do one cake at a time!  I decided to make all the roses for the wedding cake first then once completed do the christening cake. As both cakes were sponge, I had no choice but to leave the baking as close to the delivery date as possible.  I cooked all 10 sponges on Thursday!  (Plus an 11th for my daughter to decorate for her boyfriends birthday).  I spent most of Friday decorating the christening cake.  Now, I have two flaws. The first being that I'm a perfectionist ( if this is even a flaw!).  The second being I am very hard on myself. If something goes a little wrong, doubt begins to set in and I think to myself 'what was I thinking?  I can't do this!).  If once I cover the sponge with fondant I have little cracks or a tiny tear, it's a major thing! I go into meltdown!  Why? Why is it cracking! It didn't last time.... No other cake decorators have these things go wrong! Maybe it's me then,  maybe I should give up I'm obviously not good enough!  How can I charge ppl for this!
See what I have to put up with? Both th wedding cake and the christening cakes had this problem. Elephant skin they call it where the fondant isn't smooth in appearance, it decides to itself it wants to play up and crack and split!  Well after a couple of hours of self hatred and what can only be described as 'teenage tantrums', my hubby kicked me up the back side and told me to get on with it.  Tells me he has every faith in me that I can do.  Well, I think to myself, at least someone does!.
So I did as he said, rebooted my self and ploughed into them.  The christening cake was finished around 4pm on the Friday.  I was very happy with the results. Took loads of pics as usual and plastered in all over Facebook. There!  First cake done!  Yippee!!

Right then, I'm up for it now.  I dirty iced the four tiers of the wedding cake on the Thursday.  All I had to do today was cover in fondant, make the edible lace, apply the edible lace, and decorate each tier with royal icing.... Simple... What could go wrong!

To start with, it was 4 pm and this cake needed to be completed for the following day!  I can do this!!!!
Hmmmmmm.  Every single tier had 'elephant skin'. Omg!  What's going on.  I did as the people on You Tube did and sprayed with water whilst kneading it to keep it moist,  i used the minimal amount of cornflour to roll the icing.  I was doing everything right!, grrrrrrrrrrrr..

Can you see the cycle??  Here we go again.  Only this time, I can't cover the cracks with flowers or shapes.  Being a wedding cake, the fondant is on show!  I made myself a cuppa (a cuppa solves every problem!), and thought what now!  You know what, nothing!  There was nothing I could do.  Just plough on baby!  By now, it was already coming up to 9 pm. I hadn't started making the edible lace!  Oooopsy.

Best crack on.... So, I mixed the paste to make the edible lace.  Added this paste to the agreed mould. Left it for the allotted time to dry, went back to it and.... *$!*?~¥!!, the blasted thing wouldn't come out of its mould!  For crying out loud I thought (only not so polite!).  I haven't got time for this!
Thankfully just this week, I had purchased a product called Express Lace.  It only takes four minutes to dry, but it's not very easy to place into the mould. I soon got the hang of it though.  It was a very laborious task.  I only have the one strip (mould) so can only make one piece at a time.  These moulds are rather expensive so for the moment I only have one of each.  This express lace only works in the harder moulds.  Of course, the lace pattern the bride wanted for the cake was a soft mould!
I kept thinking, she's going to hate it!  My only saving grace was that I was making this cake as a gift.
There was no fee, so surely she couldn't be disappointed with it? She may not, but what about me?  I was going to be disappointed. Can you imagine what I'd be going through if the bride had been paying £400 plus for this!  I dread to think.

I was up till 4am, making and attaching the lace then up again at 7 am to put the finishing touches to it before delivering the cake.  This wasn't done!  Oh no far from it.  Once at the venue I had to construct the cake, add the ribbon, decorate with royal icing piping and add the flowers.  This took just over two and a half hours.  In total I estimate this cake on its own took around 35 hours to put together.

So, next time anyone goes to any cake maker for a quote for a cake, be it wedding, birthday etc, please before your jaw hits the floor in shock at the price you have just been given, take this into consideration.  When we (all cake makers) get the job of making your special cake, it's not just a case of chucking a mixture in the oven, slapping on some icing and a couple of flowery type bits and job done.  There is a lot of emotion that goes into every cake baked and decorated. There are tears, worry,  self doubt, disappointment, confusion, excitement, joy and many more.  The though process for each and every cake is long and tiering.  The wedding cake alone gave me two migraines!  The afternoon on the day of delivery was spent with me sleeping to shirk off the headache picked up from lack of sleep and pure worry of how the cake would turn out. This isn't just a hobby.  Yes it's a beautiful way to make a living, but don't believe for a minute it's not hard work!! So, like I said previously, when we give you a quote for a cake and you think, 'how much, it's only a cake', please consider everything I have said.

Oh by the way, the wedding cake was beautiful even if I do say so myself!  Why was I worried lol. I will try and post a photo of the finished cake.

Right, must get on!  Back on the market this weekend.

Taly ho x