I was just curious as to what fellow members base their votes on? Do you simply go by which cake is the most perfect? The best idea? The biggest? Most detail?

Being rather new to cake decorating, I can come up with GREAT ideas, and I will have a picture in my head, but haven't quite mastered the techniques yet. I have an excellant IDEA for this months cake contest, but after already seeing some of the entries...well, Im a bit intimidated as I know my cake will not come out as pictured in my head. Of course, I will try though.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

-Daniell

I agree Daniell! I have acute idea, but I am a bit intimidated as well. This will be the first contest I enter, and I am interested in knowing members' personal criteria for rating as well.

My criteria, however, is as follows:
1- If the cake looks like it was dropped or something (my feeling is that if you put the effort into the cake, it's worth at least a "Fair" rating, not "Poor" unless it just looks tragic.)
2- decent, like something you'd see in a basic grocery store bakery
3- something that makes me say "Huh, that looks good" or "That's a neat idea". Better than the average grocery store cake
4- Cakes that really surprise me and make me say Wow!
5- The one very best cake out of all the entries.

Hope that helps!
Misty

thnaks for your initial input Misdawn! Can I get a little more? On your vote for 5--would you say the cakes surprise you more by the creative idea behind it or the way it was presented (techniques i.e. smooth icing, perfect flowers, etc)? And again for a 5-the best cake..idea or technique?

I think I usually vote very much like you except I don't believe I have ever given anything less than a 3. Just because of the effort and time involved. I may change that though as I see a lot of cakes with the flowers And I usually give the highest rating to the one I look at and go..what a great idea! I guess the technique has something if it looks nice and neat! I suppose its all subjective.

-Daniell

For me...to get a Excellent...it must have an all around greatness. Looks great, great idea, makes me go...WOW! Even if it has blemishes....and makes me go "Wow" it would get the 5 star rating.

I understand the "not having the technique right". I am the same way. I guess because I have not been doing cakes for too long.

I say...do it and post it! Don't be discouraged!

My vote goes to creativity. In the Cakecentral contest, it doesn't matter if you vote a 1-star or 5-star...each vote is counted a one vote and the person with the highest number of votes wins....regardless of the stars!


So.....get working on those ideas, don't be intimidated by anything! I think when you put your heart and soul into something..it shows!

I'm not as interested in "perfection" as I am in creativity...use of color...use of accents....that sort of thing.

I want a cake to say something to me.....other than "eat me..eat me"...

I vote according to how much work and thought was put into the cake....but I make it a point to try to vote for everybody, because I remember veejax mentioning that everyone puts hard work into it and should at least be voted on.....Question for you....how do you feel about reposting to enter the contest? Or should it be a new idea you come up with?

Mrs. Missey-I see the rules have been changed as far as the voting goes and the STARS DO COUNT! If you vote 5 stars that cake gets 5 votes, if you give it 1 star, that cake gets 1 vote.

On reposting for the contest, well, I'm kinda torn on that one. I don't think you should repost a photo just because you happened to use "purple". That's why I asked the question I did. Although more creative, I don't know if my idea will be able to compete with the large tiered cakes with the perfect icing and beatiful roses. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there was just as much effort in theirs as there will be in mine but....I guess to be more fair, I would like to see "new ideas". But I don't believe there are any rules in place that. But then again, if you just did a very cute cake two weeks ago and it fits the purple theme, you shouldn't be penalized because your timing or someones birthday was off. So, even when I really think about it, I'm still torn.

Just to explain myself a little more, when I saw the "purple" theme, I immediately thought of Grimmace. You know the big round purple friend of Ronald McDonalds? How cute would a cake of Grimmace be? Would definately rank high on my scale!


Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts. I'm going to go with my idea. It will be fun to make regardless. And another experience.

-Daniell

Dannie --- that's a way cute idea....you should do it regardless of how people's voting criteria....that's an awesome idea! I hope we get to see Grimace soon ---- just no Barney ! (lol)

I base my votes on how well I personally like the cake. And how well the techniques were done on it.

One thing that I find hard about the contests though is that it's quite obvious that fondant cakes are different from buttercream frosted cakes. Fondant cakes seem to look more "real" if the cake is suppose to be something in particular in my opinion. I hope that makes sense.

I'm glad they took off the names of the enterants for the contests too. And don't get me wrong, but it still seems pretty obvious which cakes are done by professional decorators or those who do it full time as oppose to those who do it just for fun with much less experience.

I'm not sure that CC wants to get more technical on the contest but maybe an idea would be to have different catagories and different skill levels too. That would mean more prizes but maybe there could be just a "blue ribbon" award or something that doesn't cost to send out instead.
Just a thought.

KimAZ

I look at how complicated the design is, and how perfect the cake is.

But for like the food items contest, I didn't vote on any hunting cakes because I think hunting is wrong. I don't understand the shooting the deer in the head cake.

But anyways, a lot of the cakes I look for moderness. I like the cake to look new, and fresh. Not something that came out of last years Wilton magazine.