Very interesting read indeed. I’ve often thought to myself when looking at some of the “cakes” on here and other sites “how in the heck did they do that??” I’ve always just thought that they are people who have way more cakes under their belts and so have developed mad skills.
I assume, maybe incorrectly, that most of the collab cakes are not real but as someone who has never been a part of one I wasn’t sure. I figured why would they waste making a cake just to photograph it? Funny though as I assumed that competition cakes were real cakes I guess because they were being seen in person. Guess I was way wrong on that? Again, I’ve never taken part in a competition other than submitting photos of my cakes for online contests.
I am just a hobby baker doing cakes for family, friends and a few others who have heard of my cakes by word of mouth. I’ve never taken a class other than watching bits and pieces of Craftsy classes. I’ve learned by tutorials, online reading, feedback from sites like this and good old trial and error. The first tiered cake I did had no support whatsoever cause I had no idea that was a thing. It even traveled over rather bumpy roads and survived! I guess when it comes right down to it I am pretty naive about the cake world and what is real and what is not.
I often get down on myself because “look what this person was able to make out of cake!” and feel that my creations just pale in comparison but mine are actually cake. I’ve only ever used dummies on four occasions. Each time it was for a tiered cake because the design looked better as a tiered cake but we didn’t require that much cake. For instance, the bottom tier of this cake is a dummy but his head and hat are all cake.
Every now and then I use rkt to help out in getting a shape right but not very often cause I’m usually too stunned to think life would be easier doing it that way than making it all out of cake. Lol. There was one TV show I actually stopped watching because I found the cakes were composed of more rkt than cake and to me, that’s not a cake. It’s rkt with some cake. I thought it was misleading to be calling them cakes.
Not to take anything away from those who decorate dummies, they are gorgeous, but I personally don’t think they should be called cakes.
I’m so glad you wrote this. It was an enjoyable read and an eye opener for sure!
Kelly's Kitchen
