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Cake Decorating

So, I work at a K-Mart bakery. My normal work consists of packaging the products, putting them out on the floor, and generally taking care of the customers. Around Valentine's though, I started getting more involved with the cake decorating aspect of the bakery. It began with me putting the frosting on top of cupcakes, and it has progressed from there to the point where I can do a basic number of things. Our lone cake decorator decided to take a second vacation after having one only two weeks ago, and, unfortunately, she left us with practically no decorated cakes to put in the display case for the week she was gone.

We held up okay for about two days, but I walked in on Tuesday seeing all the empty spots knowing how those awful kinds of customers you get in retail were soon going to start throwing fits about there being no sheet and 8-inch round cakes. (I can whip out the torte cakes and cupcakes that fill up the rest of the case no problem.) With it being really slow thanks to everyone still finishing up their Thanksgiving leftovers, I had a good couple hours to put the skills I had learned to the test. I couldn't do the fancy flowers or stuff that our cake decorator normally puts on for decoration, but with various borders, a few ribbons, and lots of sprinkles I think what I did came out as acceptable.


The baby/smash cake got a basic design of a loopy shell-type border on top (don't know the 'technical' term for most of these things) and a normal shell border on the bottom. Threw some sprinkles on there, and it was good to go!

Status: Sold! It was the first one to sell too.


This was a bar cake design I've actually done quite a few times before. It was one of the first kind of designs the cake decorator showed me because of how easy it is to do. Put a shell border on it, dash on some sprinkles, curl some ribbons to match, and stick them on. 

Status: Sold!


This bar cake I was a little more "Ehh..." about. I didn't originally put the sprinkles on as I wasn't sure if I would like them. I put it in the case with just the borders, but I realized when I went into work yesterday that it was far too plain. My co-worker in the deli (that is connected to the bakery) helped me add the sprinkles, but as you can tell in the bottom left corner she got a bit too over-eager (^^)

Status: Unsold


This was my failed cake, and thankfully it was the only one. It was my attempt at trying balloons. The circles came out well enough even if they were a bit smaller than how the cake decorator tends to make them. Then I tried to add the ribbons for the balloons, and that was where it went wrong. The bakery lead told me Thursday when I showed her this picture that I probably used too big of a round tip. The ribbons are supposed to come out in a nice curl, which you can see a little of on the top pink balloon. My ribbons came out in messy blobs. Knowing there was no way it was going to sell, I added "I Can't Do Balloons" and bought the cake for myself /(^o^)/ Thankfully, it was a yellow cake, which is my favorite. I can't stand our chocolate cakes.

Status: Forcibly sold!


I went back to the simple stuff as I would be in trouble having to buy a bunch of cakes if I messed them up. This 1/8 sheet cake got plain borders and sprinkles.

Status: Sold!


Then I moved up to the 1/4 sheets, and this was where I got kinda nervous. The 1/4 sheets are far too big to do nothing but borders on. There would be too much boring, white space left. Despite not feeling exactly confident after my failed balloons, I went ahead and did a bunch of circles to go for a design the cake decorator occasionally does. Smiley faces! I had a lot of fun with this one even if it took a while. Each one has a different expression, and it entertained me having some of them interact (^^) My favorite is the top left green smile staring in concern at the derpy top right green smile.

Status: Sold!


Mt original idea was to put cherries on top of the rosettes, but I miscounted the rosettes I made. Instead of the cherries being at each corner and in the center of the two long sides, they would have been off-center. Putting on some borders and sprinkles spruced it up nicely instead. I worried as soon as I finished if it was far too early for me to put out Christmas colored stuff yet, but...

Status: Sold!



So, that was the stuff I made on Tuesday. I walked in yesterday to find the case somewhat empty again, and the bakery lead was working on more cakes to put out. With six hours of work ahead of me and literally nothing else to do but package a few muffins and clean, I was put back on cake duty.


The bakery lead said to pull out some of the winter stuff, which is some of my favorite stuff to work with. A lot of it is sparkly (^^) I started ambitious going with a snowman. I based the borders and his scarf off the plastic cap I was going to put on his head, but once again I made my circles too small. There was no way to place the cap without it overtaking the snowman's head. I didn't try to draw one as I knew it would come out horrible. The stick arms gave me enough trouble as it was. I think the snowman was complimented just fine once some sparkly snowflake rings and some winter sprinkles were added though.

As I only put out most of these cakes later in the afternoon yesterday, all of them were still in the case by the time I left.


Now knowing the proper count for my rosettes, I got to do my cherry idea as planned. I put down the rosettes I needed first before filling in the gaps with smaller ones.


I was going to do more smiley faces on this one as the first smiley face design had sold, but it morphed into this instead. I had way too much fun with it, haha. It was hard getting the sprinkles on as the bakery lead had had the cakes sitting out for a while, so the base coats of frosting that were already on them had hardened enough to the point where the sprinkles didn't want to stick.


The bakery lead had to go do other things. She left this lay-on on the counter, so I decided to use it. Our cake decorator would usually place it directly in the center, but I propped it up at the back so there was still room to write on the top. This cake was my deli co-worker's favorite.



Running out of ideas and getting messy (the frosting gets everywhere!), I went back to plain borders and sprinkles for the final two 1/8 sheets.


It was fun getting to do this, especially since I didn't have our rather nitpicky, kinda overbearing cake decorator breathing down my neck while I did it. However, I definitely think I would like to have this kind of work be a thing done only once in a great while. I much rather prefer writing to be my artistic outlet.
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