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How can I help my friend start a career in cake decorating?

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  • 18-04-2012 4:51pm
    #1
    pok3rplaya
    Registered Users Posts: 2,004 ✭✭✭


    I have a friend with a serious passion for cake decorating/baking/sugarcraft and who is in need of a career change.

    She is not trained as a chef (mixed-media art in college before taking a job in an unrelated discipline) but she spends all her time baking and decorating cakes and has attended numerous sugarcraft courses.

    What does she need to do or who should we talk to in order to help her move into a career in cake decorating or bakery?

    Here are some pictures of her work.

    Appreciate any help you can give.
    Tagged:


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    #2
    phormium
    Registered Users Posts: 3,340 ✭✭✭phormium


    There are not many jobs in that area especially in sugarcraft as most makers of these type of cakes are individuals working from home based businesses. Any bakery type job, if she could get one, would not give her that type of sugarcraft work. If she has a suitable kitchen to bake from she could register her own small business, would need to have the kitchen inspected by the HSE, contact local environmental health officer, need product and public liability, register with Revenue, set up a facebook page, that would get her started. There are loads of facebook pages out there for similar home businesses. However, she will not make much money, people are very slow to pay for what they call 'just cake', the hours of work involved in producing good sugarcraft is not seen or understood by the public in general and for this reason it is very hard to charge a price that would give a decent living.


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    #3
    looksee
    Registered Users Posts: 28,466 ✭✭✭✭looksee


    ^^What Phormium said! I have the same background as your friend, and did cakes - which were very much admired - for several years. But no-one cares how many hours you spent making 12 dozen rose petals, and that's before you assemble them into flowers and ice the cakes and decorate and add piping and frills and god knows what else!

    And then there was the time I was putting the finishing touches to a 3 tier cake and a football flew in through the back door and bounced off the counter top where I was working...


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    #4
    lordstilton
    Registered Users Posts: 174 ✭✭lordstilton


    Not to be too harsh but the examples you've shown are not very good.. There are some very talented people doing work of a much higher standard struggling at the moment.. To stand out your friend would have to up her game considerably


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    #5
    girl2
    Registered Users Posts: 654 ✭✭✭girl2


    lordstilton wrote: »
    Not to be too harsh but the examples you've shown are not very good.. There are some very talented people doing work of a much higher standard struggling at the moment.. To stand out your friend would have to up her game considerably

    To be fair, I think her sugarcraft and flower work is very good, so I think your statement is a little harsh. The sugar paste work could do with some improvement, but I definitely think this person has talent.

    I've been baking and decorating for a few years now and I have found that there is only decent money to be made with wedding cakes, where people are prepared to pay the going rate. Novelty cakes are all well and good and very nice to look at, however I have found that very very few people will pay the prices that would cover the work put in, even at minimum wage.

    Op, it would probably be wise for your friend to do this as a sideline in the meantime to try and get some experience as well as build up a bit of a clientele and get her name about. I wouldn't worry too much right now about any licensing or HSE stuff until she knows she is very serious about it all.

    If there's anything I can do to help or advise, gimme a shout anytime. Hope it all works out :-)


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    #6
    Acoshla
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,729 ✭✭✭Acoshla


    girl2 wrote: »
    Op, it would probably be wise for your friend to do this as a sideline in the meantime to try and get some experience as well as build up a bit of a clientele and get her name about. I wouldn't worry too much right now about any licensing or HSE stuff until she knows she is very serious about it all.

    Getting HSE Registered is free so I would recommend anybody who wants to sell cakes (even at a beginner level) should get it, the last thing you want is something going wrong from a hygiene/foreign object/product recall/illness point of view when you're trying to build a customer base.

    To do it without it also gives people a difficult position if they later go to register and are told their kitchen isn't suitable, when they have built a customer base, have upcoming orders and might not be able to use their kitchen without renovating or finding a commercial one to rent the use of.


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    #7
    DreamC
    Registered Users Posts: 167 ✭✭DreamC


    A short answer:
    To decorate cakes as a well paid hobby - yes.
    To rely on that as the only way of income - No.
    PS. And I would agree with lordstilton, that there is always some space for improvement. No pain - no gain.


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    #8
    IsisElektra
    Registered Users Posts: 19 ✭IsisElektra


    perhaps your friend might be better off working in a hotel our tea rooms first where she could gain valuable experience in baking, presentation and learn more skills whilst making cakes as a sideline. it's always a good idea to learn basic techniques before starting more advanced courses as if your base is less than perfect it detracts a lot from the finished product. basics and lots of practical experience is the way to go before jumping into a field that based on hourly rate will rarely pay a living wage. like someone before me said it's a great hobby but the large majority of people don't want to pay much more than teen our so quid for a kids birthday cake. yes wedding cakes are more lucrative but there are some very skilled bakers out there and the competition is fierce


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    #9
    rubadub
    Registered Users Posts: 32,381 ✭✭✭✭rubadub


    IsisElektra wrote: »
    yes wedding cakes are more lucrative but there are some very skilled bakers out there and the competition is fierce
    Never heard of somebody commenting about getting a wedding cake at a good price, as you say lucrative, so lucrative that you could probably undercut the competition. I remember hearing my friends wife saying I, ahem I mean they, would not be getting a chocolate biscuit wedding cake as it was so dear.

    That got me thinking, I am not a baker but could easily knock up a chocolate biscuit cake, and they keep a lot longer.

    I saw a tv program on sugar craft and I (an engineer) was amazed at the amount of time & effort they went to. If I was in the business I would have all sorts of moulds and cutters made to knock stuff out in a fraction of the time. You could knock out generic ones which look individual but are not, e.g. I think I saw a thread here with somebody making high heel cakes, which were all just a touch different. For lads you could have beer bottle cakes, with stencils or cutouts for all popular brands for lettering.


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