Creative Cooking ~CE4 ~ Pg54

Today we job shadowed a self-employed cake maker and decorator. To do this job, you need to be able to hold yourself accountable. You should be able to budget your time. A cake might have layers or it might be a sheet cake. It might be frosted or it might have fondant over the top. Fondant is type of icing used to make the cake look smooth. You have to be good at decorating; but you also need to know when to stop decorating. Sometimes, you have to be willing to start over when you make a mistake, or you need to try new things or different cakes.

Some pros to being a cake decorator are that it is flexible. You can do it over a period of three days, or you can do it all in one day so long as you have it done before the deadline. Another pro is that you can mostly do it in your style. The customer may tell you some basic ideas, but you can be creative.

Some cons are that it takes up a lot of time. One little cake took 4 hours plus baking and clean up time. It could take longer if you made your own fondant or icing.

Cakes are needed most on the weekends. This is both a pro and con. It is good if you want a weekend job for any reason, but bad because your weekends are always filled with work. As a cake decorator you can choose to be self employed or you can work for somebody else. All of that said, I would choose to be a cake maker, but my sister, FigNewTon would not.