Let’s talk about multi-tier cakes. Cake is heavy. If you’re doing a one-tier cake, you can do what you want. But as soon as that cake starts holding up other cake, you need to start thinking in terms of building something, not just baking something. You can start with a nice, sturdy cake. The vanilla … More Nine Dowels for Stacking

Happy New Year! Let’s talk about fondant. What fondant? I hear from lots of customers, “I don’t like fondant, don’t use it.” When this is the case, I don’t use it at all. But hear me out. I actually make my own fondant. I use this recipe from Sugar Geek Show. I tried it because … More Eight Fondant Details

Let’s talk about food colouring. I happen to be publishing this on the eve of our Wool n’ Spinning “Year of Colour,” so it seems appropriate! Colouring cake You can absolutely use food colouring on your cake as well as your frosting. I love making vanilla cakes with different colours inside. I don’t get a … More Seven Colours of Frosting

Let’s talk about buttercream. There are umpteen recipes for frosting. To run a cake decorating business, I needed one buttercream recipe that was excellent and reliable. I wanted it to be easy to make, to look amazing when piped, and to hold up well. This was literally the first one I tried, again from that … More Five Pounds of Buttercream

I thought I would share with you the one recipe that I make most often now. Vanilla is by far the most commonly requested flavour of cake. The oil-based cake I used at first stopped working for me; it just didn’t bake through anymore. So I went back to that old faithful Craftsy class, took … More Four Layers of Vanilla Cake

Let’s talk about tools. When I started home decorating, just for family, I didn’t buy anything fancy. I slowly added to my tools as I decided what would be most useful. So I will talk about what tools I use now, plus alternatives I used before investing in something specialized. Mixers: Let’s jump in at … More Three Drawers of Tools

Let’s talk about recipes. If you are into baking, you are probably already a better baker than I am. The actual baking is my weakest point in cake decorating. But I will share with you a few of the recipes that I use, and why I use them specifically in a northern context. Maybe you … More Two Recipe Types

Let’s talk about ingredients. To be honest with you, the actual baking is not my strongest point. I’m sure you have cake recipes that you like, that work for you. But when you’re trying to scale up to actually run a business, you have to think about which ingredients to choose. What ingredients we choose … More One Shopping List