Well we know were we are from and why we started. How about what your favorite part of cake decorating is? I like the fact that you can try anything anything at all and if you don't like it you can just for the most part scrape it off and start over. Also that i get to do it all by myself i wait untill the kids go to bed and just have at it. I don't here the TV or the outside traffic and before i know it is 2 in the morning and i have a mess in the kitchen. I can be having a bad day at work come home bake a cake and feekl soooo much better. Plus when ever i finish a cake my 4 year old will say .. that is the prettest cake i ever seen. can i have a taste?... It always puts a smile on my face he is such a sweet heart and knows that will get him a big piece of cake..
Can't wait to hear everyone elses favorite part of decorating!

Cady

My fav part is when I step back and look at the cake from across the room and say, "Now that is a beautiful cake - I think I like that one the best". Becaue up to that point I am screaming, cursing, yelling, seeing stars......... ............ but loving it at the same time.

bj

Great topic!

Overall my favorite part of decorating is Seeing the recipients face and how happy they are with it. Whether it is an ordered cake, a just because cake, or a surprise cake. I love knowing that someone else appreciates the hard work I put into the cake.

But I really enjoy starting from basic ingredients then coming up with edible artwork. Baking is my way to relieve stress and be creative. I usually say "I don't drink or smoke, I bake my stress away". I rarely eat any of my baking, but others do benefit from my stress!

I love when people say " Is that a cake? No, that can't be a cake" because it looks so much like the thing it was made to simulate. Or, at the last wedding I did, I had three diffrent people tell me " that is the most beautiful cake I've ever seen." As a stay at home mom... praise or recognition is few and far between. Doing cakes is a creative outlet for me. I love the challenge of recreating a cake in a magazine that costs thousands of dollars for $400, just to see if I can do it. I love the way people smile and even cry when I bring their cake in and it's just what they wanted. I love that my little boys have their next four birthdays planned out around what type of cake they will have, and that my 4yr.old says, " Mommy, you make the best cake in the whole world!"

I think my favorite part is to see happy people when I give them a cake. When they tell me that is exactly what they wanted or better! I also love it when I make my daughter's cakes and she tells everyone "My mommy made the cake...and her's are the BEST!!!" She gives the most compliments...even if I really do not like what I did...she always says it looks beautiful!!!
traci

This is gonna sound funny but I love sitting down w/ the bride & groom for a consultation!! Helping them pick out their wedding cake is so much fun!! I show them all my pics... they ohh & ahh at them making me feel great!! I always show them all the books I have & let them pick from there if they like. That part is so gratifing!! Of course getting that downpayment is wonderful!!!!

My other favorite is decorating the cakes & making fondant flowers, doing color flow & BCFT. I don't really like the baking part of cake decorating. I have mastered a yellow & a white cake recipe but so far I just mix the ingredients up & pray that it turns out good. I would love to get some more Chocolate, Strawberry, German Chocolate, Italian Cream Cheese, & Carrot Cake recipes. Along w/ the icings that go with them. So if any of you have a good recipe that you like & don't mind giving it out would you please email it to me? THANKS SO MUCH!!!

I like the decorating part....
I don't like to bake or icing the cakes...lol...just do the decorating portion....I love making flowers.....learning now to do them with fondant...will give gumpaste a try next...
If I could just find someone to bake and icing the cakes I'd have it made...
cakegal

I love

waking up early on Saturday with the full day ahead of me to make cakes.

giving cakes to people.

reading new cake books at night before I go to bed.

when I've surprised myself at something I didn't think I could do.

finding new recipies, or interesting things about ingredients. I really enjoy learning about what is the best quality products to use.

This is such a wonderful poll!

Mmmm, lets see...

My favorite part of cake decorating is:

1. I don't care for the baking part, but once cake is done, what a relief!
2. Putting on the icing on the cake and smoothing. Sometimes it can be a bit frustrating, but it actually relaxes me.
3. Putting it all together and taking a look at it. I see it as a work of art and labor of love.
4. Seeing peoples faces, especially kids, when they see their favorite characters represented in the cake.

My husband's favorite part: cake scraps.... he eats them like Cookie Monster eat his cookies on Sesame Str.

As Peacockplace put it:
"As a stay at home mom... praise or recognition is few and far between."

The reactions I get from my cakes are priceless. I smile from ear to ear for days.....similar to all your lovely comments when I post photos. Who doesn't like to be praised???? And we are ALL very worthy of it!!!!

What a great idea for a poll! I love seeing the look on someone's face when they see a cake made just for them, one that does not look like any other cake they've ever received. I'm not real crafty myself, I don't sew or crochet or anything like that, but I've discovered that I can actually draw pretty well on a cake! So it is my way of giving a special gift to a dear friend or a family member, something that was made especially for them. And I love it when I hear "it's too pretty to cut!" That is a wonderful thing to hear - it makes all the stress well worth it!

I think it's when I look at my calendar and see all the cakes I have booked to do.. when I see the names of people I've done cakes for before and they order again, I know I'm doing something right.. or when the phone rings and they tell me that someone I've done a cake for referred them to me.. It makes you feel good about what you're doing ... I feel inspired to do try and do something a little better, a little different, a little more unusal to try to set their cakes apart from the norm... does that make sense? lol

I love......the logistics.

Weird I know. I love sitting down and figuring out sizes/servings/flavor combos & design, I spend hours pouring over designs, then pulling some together to get it just right.

I know what you mean about smoothing the frosting, it seems to relax me to.

I love pouring over my books at night and dreaming, knowing I may never be a Collette Peters, but that I still have a knack for something most don't.

I do not consider myself an artistic person, and while I still woulnt go that far, there is a real pride in pulling something together, wheather my idea or someone elses. Its a challange.

The only thing I really want is more time, to try all the different techniques I have never done yet, just wanna play.

The sigh of relief when it is done that I didn't kill anyone in the process. Hubby doesn't come near me when I am doing a cake!

my gratification...beyond that it makes me forget about work, forget about dentist appointments, forget about just about everything... would be that my son's high school football team talk about my cakes during practice....being considered "the coolest" mom because of cake isn't too bad

The best part about cake decorating is that it is pretty when job is complete and hoping that all the decors stays in place without any smudges. I love to hear good and bad things about my cakes cause it lets me know where and what I need to improve. It is so nice to hear wonderful comments about each cake that I make cause I try to add a little something different to it that makes people say yummy, that is good and moist cake. A matter of fact, I just received a request to make a strawberry shortcake for the month of August. I'm so excited about doing this, since I got excellent reviews about this. Everyone wanted to know if I sell cakes that I make and I told them no, cause I have to improve on my decorating techniques. These are my thoughts. Great topic for the forum.

To think about a design and to make something new by picking parts from this and the flowers from there and put something totally diffrent to it ... mix it up ... and there it is: a totally new designed cake. So every cake is unique and just for this special occasion, that´s a great feeling.

Another thing which is great in decorating cakes is, that you, normaly, only deal with happy moments (birthdays, weddings, baby-showers etc.). There are enough bad things around, but the cake will be part of something special with lots of smiling faces around! I really love this job!

My favorite part of making the cake is after I've got it all baked, torted & filled, iced, and smoothed, and the cake is sitting there, like a blank canvas waiting to be decorated. All the other is pretty stressful for me, worrying about getting the cake even, flat & smooth, so when all that is done, doing the decorations is the fun part.

Of course my favorite part of all is to step back and admire the finished product when I'm all done, and my least favorite part is having to cut into it

Melissa

Oh yeah, I totally do NOT like cutting my own cake. I refust to do it. It's just too painful. The one and only cake I made for someone else that I wanted to do the honors is the Chocolate Chocolate Pudding Chocolate Ganache Cake. I've made two of them for my MIL and she was more than happy to have me cut it and "OH MY!" was it good!


Amy

My favorite part is the whole process...I love designing the cake and drawing it out on paper, then baking the cakes, decorating them (especially any type of cake where I put fresh flowers on it), the delivering and setting up portion, and finally hearing everyone comment on the cake (whether good or bad)...
at work I have planned the last couple of parties and what we call "pig outs" (aka potlucks) because I do such a good job at it I earned a nickname "the hostess with the mostess", everyone thanks me for doing such a good job planning the event...
**Sometimes the cake does not look like anything that I drew up for my orginal idea...but I figure I have something for next time

This is a fun question! It's hard to pick which part I like THE best... I think it is coming up with the idea or concept. I like baking the cakes, DON'T like making the buttercream frosting. I love doing the actual decorating too, like Melissa said, starting with a blank slate and filling it with something creative. I would like to say that I bake to make special occasions happier for other people. But honestly, I do it for my own enjoyment and if someone else enjoys it too, that's an added bonus. Is that selfish??

My favorite part is the challenge. As a fairly new decorator, every cake becomes a challenge! Yes, there is stress when trying to figure it out or wonder if it will work out but...it's really satisfying to take on the chalenges. I am not a real creative person and need visuals to get me started so I love it when someone brings me their ideas, regardless of how weird!

My favorite part of doing cakes is looking at my masterpiece. Ussually I stay up for hours my feet and back are killing me, my kitchen will take a day to clean. But when I look across the room at my masterpiece and imagine what the person geting the cake will say to me when she sees it. I always send a picture of everycake to my mom through email, and she is amazed everytime.

I was accually going to school to get my degree in archetecture, but started using what i leaned on cakes and this is so much funner! i am now in school fo business to one day open my own cake shop.

I love the stepping back part and amazing myself sometimes. I am my worst critic and see every mistake. I like the final result in person. Not the pictures that I can look at and mull over and say, "I should have done this or that" or "Look at this, what a mess". But everybody else is saying WOW.

I love the fact that I can make money doing something I love to do. I can stay up all night and work on a cake. Be on my feet for hours at a time and not notice the building aches until I sit down or lay down.

My husband always wants to know "Why do you do that to yourself?" One wedding I did, there was so much piping on both the bride and grooms cake that My Right hand was swollen the next day and sore for 2 days after. After that I got a hand brace.

What is my favorite Part? The final TAH DAH and the comments like "It tastes as good as it looks." and "How did you do that?"

I love the self-gratification, staying up all night to make sure that my basket weave is perfect, living on a pot of coffee (which doesnt make, making straight lines very easy) or making flowers, and when it is all done, I can step back and be amazed that I could do that. Starting with nothing but ingredients, and making it mine, though I may spend hours ready to pull out my hair, with my dogs sitting in the other room looking like "Uh oh, here she goes again" then seeing people's faces when they get their cakes! Makes the hours of struggle, asking myself WHY did I start this cake again? and Now that I am on Cake Central I can't wait to come here and post my pictures and see that other people appreciate my work, becuase they KNOW what it is like, and how many hours went in to it!
Great topic!! =o) I love seeing everyone else's too!