I spent a couple hours on Saturday afternoon frosting the premade cupcakes with my premade frosting and layering and frosting the cake (also premade). I packed up all the little gumpaste flowers and decided to put them onto the cupcakes after I got them set up at the WAC. Making the frosting on the cake was the hardest part of the whole thing for me. The Swiss Meringue frosting is delicious, but airy, and doesn't smooth out perfectly like I wanted. But I got it as smooth as I could and had to just be happy with it. I need to figure out how to remove the air bubbles from that frosting...
I packed everything into the car and DJ, my Grandma Ulmer and the kids and I headed downtown to drop it off. We decided to go to dinner afterwards, so it was just easier for everyone to tag along. It also made it easier for me because I was able to hold the cakes in my lap and no worry about it.
When I met Kahly at the WAC she was so excited that I had surprised her with more than just a tray of cupcakes. I took all the cake and supplies to the room and got to work setting things up. She was SO SO HAPPY, which made me extremely happy too. I'm so glad she loved it.
OH, and a little side story from the day before the party. A lady at the WAC contacted Kahly and told her she couldn't bring outside food into the club (after they had already been told they could). She was being very difficult and finally said that they could as long as it was from a catering company or bake shop. SO... I whipped up a business card in about 20 minutes and added a business email address and sent that over to them. I set my business card out by the cake just in case there were any issues, but the lady that was being difficult wasn't working that night and everything went smoothly. Kaitlyn's boyfriend is a lawyer and drafted me up some LLC papers just in case too. Very thorough!
So the next day Kahly got ahold of me and let me know how well the cake and cupcakes were received at the party. Her words were: Everyone thought they were the best cupcakes and cake they had tasted and thought that I was a legit business, wanting to know if I did events and wedding. One of her friends there has a catering business and said my red velvet cake was hands down the best she had ever tasted and told Kahly that she wanted my business card. Kahly explained that I wasn't a real business and her friend said that I absolutely should be and to contact her when I am. Another friend asked if I would do her wedding cake!
I was happy as a kite that night and was glowing from all the praise. :) It was so fun to do these cupcakes and cakes, I loved every minute of it! I learned so much.
So based on the fact that I love doing this so much and on the rave reviews I got from one party, I'm considering actually working towards having some kind of cake business. I figure I've got a good 2-3 years before the kids are all in regular school and I'm going to use those years to build up a rock solid recipe index of cakes, frostings and fillings. And I'll continue to practice piping, fondant and other decorating styles. I think I'll try to take a few more classes in that department too. During this time I'll just do stuff for free or for cost of materials, and try to get some kind of portfolio built. Then, maybe, just maybe, I'll be ready for a real business venture once the kids are in school.
It's VERY intimidating to dive into this industry. It's highly competitive and is thoroughly saturated already, so I'm realistic in what I want out of it. I think the main thing will be to have fun, give myself a creative outlet and challenge myself along the way. I'm definitely not setting out to make a bunch of money, but more give myself a sense of "self" and learn and push myself. Should be an adventure!!! I may eventually switch all my cake ramblings over to a different blog, but for now this one will do.
The camera used to take the pictures was just a point and shoot, so there really aren't any good ones that capture the colors or the little details like I had hoped. The monogramed K's and the pink centers of the gumpaste flowers are painted with pearl dust for added shimmer and the little rhinestones went along with their theme for the party. The rhinestones were the only thing not edible on the cakes.
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