Past Project Friday

Every Friday I will be posting some sort of crafty project that I have completed in the past.  It could be anything from baking, to sewing, needlecrafts, art, decorating, etc.

I am a huge fan of all those cake shows - Ace of Cakes, Cake Boss, Cake Challenge, etc; and while they provide me with tons of inspiration, they have definitely upped the stakes for us small time cake decorators.  Gone are the days where a simple sheet cake with some piped flowers will suffice for a little girls birthday, everything has to be custom and everything has to be sculpted.  

So sometimes I cringe during that initial phone call where the client tells me what they want.  On this occasion it was.... a dragon cake.  Or more specifically, "my kid really likes that red toothless dragon from that new dragon movie that came out last week".  Okay.  So I spend hours online trying to find said dragon, and trying to figure out how I'm going to create this three dimensional dragon out of cake.  

Then I have to get it past the stage where I tell the client the price and they freak out on me.  Honestly, I make all of my frosting, filling, and cake by scratch - made to order, come up with my own designs, and do all of the work with my own two hands while a toddler hangs on me the whole time crying "up! up! up!".  And the amount of time I spend on some of these cakes easily adds up to at least 15-20 hours.  Since I don't consider myself a "professional" and don't take on tons of jobs (for my own sanity), I charge considerably less than a custom bakery and think that my prices are very reasonable - but I can't do this for free, people - my time is worth something!    

Anyway, the next step in my process is where I freak out about how exactly I'm going to pull this whole thing together.  This time I wandered around the house for a couple of days saying "Dragons are hard!"  Whenever we find ourselves in a difficult situation, my husband still uses that one. 

Finally I just motor through and get to work.  Sometimes it's just easier to do it than think about it.

This guy sits atop a two tiered 12" & 9" cake.  He is hand sculpted out of rice cereal treats and covered in fondant.  All of the scales and details are fondant as well, except for the wings which are gumpaste.  I was pretty pleased with him in the end.

I hope you have a great weekend!  I'll be back Monday with some updated studio pictures.  The room is painted and we just got done installing the carpet!