A Day in the Life of a Cake Decorator ~ (Sick & All) Part I

I should have taken pictures from the very beginning stages of this process, but with my head totally stuffy, I didn't think about it until some of the cakes were already baked and cooling off. Heck, honestly, I didn't think about it until I had the 14" and 12" rounds already filled and stacked!

Keep in mind, for wedding cakes, typically, the layers are 2 to 3" in height, then the filling, and then the second layer of cake. (Normal birthday and/or other event cakes are just a 2 to 3 inch layer split in halve then filled.) So, since this particular cake consists of 14 inch, 12 inch, 8 inch and 6 inch rounds, I had to bake 8 cakes total. Yes, 8.

Ordinarily, if I didn't have this stuffy head, sound like I have a gazillion frogs in my throat or feel achy all over, I wouldn't have a problem whatsoever whipping out these cakes. However, it's too good to be true. Indeed, I have a head cold. I'm totally congested. I sound like a man. My body aches all over as if I've just had a date with Jillian Michaels. So, it's taken me a little longer than usual to get these cakes baked. I drug it out into two days. I just didn't have the strength for it.

The last two cakes are out of the oven ~ cooling off. Once they are cooled to the touch, I will go ahead and level them.



This is what the cake ordinarily looks like when it comes out of the oven. Notice the little hump on the top?!? Well, this is the portion of the cake that we level off. There are a variety of handy dandy little gadgets that are out on the market just for this very purpose. They're called Cake Levelers. I will have to talk about them a little later! :)



In this photo, I'm using the leveler to trim off the "hump" of the cake so it will be completely straight right across the top.



So, it'll look just like this-----------------------------------------------------------------> Nice and leveled! Easier to fill and ice! :)

Not that you guys would be interested in this, but here's the bad boy of all the levelers out there! It's called the Agbay Cake Leveler. And this is what it looks like:

And, this is what this little baby can do ~ make your cakes look like this:

How freaking awesome is that?!? I would LOVE to do a cake for a client where it's torted that many times!!! I would, of course, have to have one of those handy dandy little Agbay Levelers though. And they start at $175. So not in my budget at this time!

Back to my cakes..... so, once all my cakes are baked (all eight of them) and cooled, I level, fill and stack them. This is the result:

Part II of this "Day in the life of a Cake Decorator" will be posted later this evening! Hope you come back to see all the excitement and finished result! :)

Have an amazing Saturday my bloggy friends!!