You guys!! Sometimes I get a cake order, and I just can’t WAIT to get started on it…I’ll still procrasticake…absolutely, but I still get super excited about it. I get asked to make cakes exactly to the customer’s specifications….I get asked to replicate certain cakes. And then I get asked to make cakes with a certain theme, etc and to just have artistic license. And I LOVE those cakes…except when I get writer’s block….but for the cake maker. And I will google and google some more. Then I’ll procrastinate, then some more. Then I’ll exhaust all my google searches. And nothing. I just CANNOT for the life of me, figure out what the hell I’m going to do.
I totally panic at some point. I don’t want to let my customer down. But then they’ve given me all the information I need. But my vision is lacking. So it was for this particular cake. I was asked to make a cake for a 70 year old woman who loves to craft, especially needle felting and papercraft. She loves her garden birds etc etc. So initially I’m like ‘yeah, sure! Leave it with me!’ Then the closer it gets I’m like ‘sake..what can I do?!’ And I’ve baked the cake. I’ve torted it, filled it, and now I’m staring at a naked cake. Wondering what in God’s name I’m going to make of it. So I start with one element…how about ‘felt’ birds?! That way it incorporates the craft and her love of garden birds. Sure, I’ll make a couple of garden birds, maybe a finch or robin, easy! So I do that, make them look a little like they’re a bit wooly. Now how do I incorporate some paper craft…yes! Wafer paper! So I decide on colours and I go with my favourites. Duck egg blue, pale pink, and gold.
Thankfully because of my love of crafting, I own a few paper punches. So I cover the cake in duck egg blue fondant, and look for my craft punches. Except I only have white wafer paper, and I REALLY want to make gold. So I try a technique really hoping it will work (because the cake is being picked up in about 2 hours….MY LIFE! )
So I take my trex (vegetable fat/shortening) and smear it over my punched paper. Lightly mind you. I don’t want globs of fat everywhere. I then used my gorgeous shimmer gold by Faye Cahill and used a really fluffy brush and dusted it over the paper.
And it worked perfectly! I made some gorgeous white ribbon roses that I also made from wafer paper and then just gave them a quick dusting of pink with my airbrush. I put on some finishing touches, and I was pleasantly surprised with the result. So sometimes…you just have to wing it. Because we can’t always have the most perfect ideas! No matter how hard you try, sometimes the inspiration is lacking. But also, sometimes you find your best work when you’re working under pressure. So don’t stress..after all my loves…it is JUST cake at the end of the day. And god knows one’s life will NOT be ruined over one dodgy cake. It sucks balls when a customer does complains…but unfortunately, that’s just life. It happens. You learn, and hopefully you get better. In this case, thankfully, I had a very happy customer.. Thanks Elisabeth! 😉🥰
I was pretty pleased with the outcome too. Let’s hope that’s the last of the caker’s block for sometime 🤪
