Friday, January 7, 2011

Past Project Friday

Every Friday I will be posting some sort of crafty project that I have completed in the past.  It could be anything from baking, to sewing, needlecrafts, art, decorating, etc.

I am a huge fan of all those cake shows - Ace of Cakes, Cake Boss, Cake Challenge, etc; and while they provide me with tons of inspiration, they have definitely upped the stakes for us small time cake decorators.  Gone are the days where a simple sheet cake with some piped flowers will suffice for a little girls birthday, everything has to be custom and everything has to be sculpted.  

Dragon Cake - in progress

So sometimes I cringe during that initial phone call where the client tells me what they want.  On this occasion it was.... a dragon cake.  Or more specifically, "my kid really likes that red toothless dragon from that new dragon movie that came out last week".  Okay.  So I spend hours online trying to find said dragon, and trying to figure out how I'm going to create this three dimensional dragon out of cake.  

Dragon Cake

Then I have to get it past the stage where I tell the client the price and they freak out on me.  Honestly, I make all of my frosting, filling, and cake by scratch - made to order, come up with my own designs, and do all of the work with my own two hands while a toddler hangs on me the whole time crying "up! up! up!".  And the amount of time I spend on some of these cakes easily adds up to at least 15-20 hours.  Since I don't consider myself a "professional" and don't take on tons of jobs (for my own sanity), I charge considerably less than a custom bakery and think that my prices are very reasonable - but I can't do this for free, people - my time is worth something!    

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Anyway, the next step in my process is where I freak out about how exactly I'm going to pull this whole thing together.  This time I wandered around the house for a couple of days saying "Dragons are hard!"  Whenever we find ourselves in a difficult situation, my husband still uses that one. 

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Finally I just motor through and get to work.  Sometimes it's just easier to do it than think about it.

This guy sits atop a two tiered 12" & 9" cake.  He is hand sculpted out of rice cereal treats and covered in fondant.  All of the scales and details are fondant as well, except for the wings which are gumpaste.  I was pretty pleased with him in the end.

I hope you have a great weekend!  I'll be back Monday with some updated studio pictures.  The room is painted and we just got done installing the carpet!

7 comments:

  1. I hope looking at it now, you see the absolutely amazing work of art you created!?? I'm completely in AWE!

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  2. that is the coolest cake dragon i have certainly ever seen!!

    sometimes i wish there was a resource i could point customers to in order to educate them on why hand/homemade costs what it does and it's inherent value....so frustrating to have people think you are overcharging when you are barely getting by making such beautiful and intricate things from scratch!! ok...i guess this is turning into a rant, haha.

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  3. Wow, that dragon is breathtaking! I can't believe the detail, truly amazing! Dragons are beautiful!

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