As many of us know, ordering decorated cakes from the grocery stores or specialty cake shops are expensive. The more people you plan to feed, the larger the cake, and the price will become higher.
The prices of decorated cakes are based on the price per piece of cake per person. The size of a sheet cake is to serve cake proportionately per person is a one inch by one inch square. Wedding cakes are served on a one inch to one and half inch slice per person. An experienced cake decorator can elaborate more on the exact specifics of how the cakes are cut and served.
Anyone who has taken cake decorating classes or has experience in decorating cakes, can start their own home based cake decorating business. The more experience you have creates a wider market appeal. For those who are starting out with little experience can offer their services to family and friends to get their foot in the door for a home cake decorating business.
Before taking on paying cake decorating jobs, make sure that you know what you are doing. The nicer the cake looks upon presentation for the event that you decorated the cake for, the more people will ask about who decorated the cake. This can lead you to more cake decorating business.
You will need a work area in your home that has ample space to bake and decorate the cakes. You will need ample counter space for mixing and cooling cakes, enough room for various colors of frostings, and to decorate the cakes.
Basic Materials for Cake Baking and Decorating
Variety of Sizes and Shapes of Cake Baking Pans
The most common sizes of cakes are 8″ x 13″ rectangular, 6″, 8″, 10″ and 12″ round cakes, and character shapes. You will need at least two of the rectangular cake pans, two sheet cake pans, and two each of the round cakes pans as a minimum. You will want to purchase the character shape pans as order’s warrant.
The basic sheet baking pans can be used for larger sized cakes. You will need to bake two to three cakes depending on the depth of the pans. The basic height of cakes that are purchased in stores is four inches high before being frosted. In some cases with sheet pans, the cake can be a bit taller after being frosted.
The round cakes will have two cakes layered together to make a taller cake. Some orders may request a single layer cake to be made and decorated.
Mixer
A smaller professional style mixer, such as Kitchen Aide and Hamilton Beach, can be used. The standard size 4-quart mixing bowl can be used for mixing the cakes. A larger mixing bowl, such as a 6-quart mixing bowl, will want to be used for making the butter creme frosting.
Cake Mixes
Many people that decorate cakes from home use the boxed cake mixes. This is due to the fact they can purchase the amount of cake mixes they need for each order.
Frosting and Food Coloring
A good white butter creme frosting recipe will be needed for this. The food coloring can be the standard food color found in a grocery store. If you know how to mix the food colorings for more colors this will be enough, but if you prefer you can find more food coloring or food coloring gels at arts and craft stores or bakery supply stores.
Spatulas
You will want spatulas to scrape down your mixing bowls and to use for pouring of the batter into the pans. You will also need spatulas for the colored frostings to decorate the cakes. You will need an icing spatula to ice the cakes with.
Cake Decorating Supplies
The basic cake decorating supplies can be purchased in kits at arts and craft stores and cake decorating supply stores. The basic supplies are as follows:
• Rose Nails. This will allow you to create the roses that are seen on professionally decorated cakes.
• Cake Decorating Bags. The cake decorating bags are used to place the icing into so that you can decorate the cake with roses and borders.
• Cake Decorating Tips. You will need to purchase rose petal tips, leaf tips, border tips.
• Cake Decorating Couplings. You will need the couplings to hold the tips in place.
• Cake Boards. Cake boards are pieces of card board cut larger than the cake so that it can be moved without breaking the cake.
• Boxes. Boxes are used to deliver the cakes to the people who purchased them.
• Various other types of decorations. There are perils, also known as sprinkles, edible images, stencils, air brushes and air brush colors, and other edible cake decorations available.
The items mentioned are the basics that a cake decorator will need to operate their custom decorated cake home business. Professional cake decorators may have further materials depending on the people they cater to. While I didn’t mention wedding cakes specifically in this article, there are home based cake decorators who cater to weddings as well. Wedding cakes take patience and a lot more practice to bake and decorate.
You will want to take pictures of cakes that you decorate for your customers. The photos of your cakes will be your walking, talking resume for future cake orders.
