Up until now I have only been dreaming of making cakes for a living. There are so many hoops to jump through, insurances, legal documents, learning the trade to a high enough level, but at last we have got the ball rolling.

The practice cakes

I’ve been making cakes for friends and family for over two years now  just for practice. Tim said that if I really wanted to do this for a living then I’d have to practice and make a cake every weekend. Now, I’m not sure if that would have been a good idea for our waistlines, but he did have a great idea. He said I should put myself out there a bit. Every time Beau or Darcey get invited to a birthday party I should offer to make the cake. I thought it was a great, yet daunting idea, but that’s exactly what I did. I made loads. Then I started to make for all our family’s birthdays and anniversaries and also I helped to celebrate big birthdays, weddings, babies and leaving do cakes at work.

Experience

It’s funny how the time passes by and all of a sudden you have been practicing making cakes for over two years. I daren’t add up how much I have spent on these free cakes. I think Tim would freak out. But when I look back on some of my early creations I can see how I would improve on them today and I know that it would take a lot less time to make them and I would know exactly how much ingredients/ icing/ what size cake board I would need as I have that experience under my belt. I’m also a lot more confident with icing. I know how to make it do what I want it to.

Here are the very first cakes I made…

Getting the ball rolling.

So where to start? I think in order to have a cake decorating business the first thing I need is a kitchen that works. With my original kitchen the layout was all wrong. When we moved into this house 4 years ago it was the first room we wanted to do, but as it is also the most expensive it is also one of the last to be attacked. The last few months have been a baking nightmare as the oven was seriously on its last legs and making cakes in an oven that just gets hotter and hotter as it bakes (whatever temperature you put it at) really doesn’t inspire confidence! So we have finally got our act together and got the ball rolling.

The new kitchen

As our kitchen and dining room are open plan we only need the patio doors in the dining area. We still had the original back door in the kitchen so we have just had that removed and a new window put in place. It’s funny what a difference it makes to how the room feels. Our builders Malcom and Steve (I would highly recommend these guys. Fast friendly and the work is impeccable)  got to our house at 7am and by 1pm we had a cosier kitchen. The old double glazed window and door obviously weren’t good at keeping the drafts out as the warmth in the room now is amazing!

The flat pack mountain

The Ikea kitchen has been delivered and is piled up high in the living room. Tim couldn’t wait to rip out the old units. I hadn’t finished emptying them before he started pulling them off the wall! Any excuse to get the tools out! We also couldn’t get Beau out of the room. She had just returned from her first ever sleepover party and was very handy with a hammer (in her best party dress!) She spent the whole morning pulling out all the old screws from the units we were putting in the garden.

Now we need to do the decorating before the kitchen is fitted. It’s got grey gloss units. Very modern and I can’t wait! Once it’s all in (new oven ! yay ! and all) and we are tiled up I can get health and safety round to check out the standard of the kitchen and then The Classy Cake Company will really have lift off!

Then let the orders come rolling in!