A Wedding and a Baby

Before you get too excited (MOM), neither the wedding nor the baby are mine. I was however, lucky enough to be a part of both my cousin's wedding day, and my boss's baby shower. My participation in both these events was my favorite kind of participation, I was asked to make the cakes. I think one of the best parts of doing freelance baking is that you are often providing a service for a friend, a member of the family, or a friend of a friend or family member (it is all about 3 degrees of separation here). With this familiarity tends to come an immense amount of freedom. Many of my 'clients' know me, know what I can do with some cake and a bowl of buttercream, and they tend to put a lot of trust in my designs and decision making.

It can be such a contrast from working with complete strangers (at the restaurant) who hand me a picture and say 'I want this cake'. I have a big ethical problem with copying cakes. Unless it is a very generic plain buttercream cake, say with some texture, or plain fondant with ribbons on the bottom like every other wedding cake these days, I won't make a copy, I just won't do it. I will give you a cake that is inspired by your picture, has all the elements you want, and in the end, is hopefully better than what your were expecting in the first place.

I think that designing and creating cakes can be an art form, and plagiarism ethics should apply. In the age of pinterest and blogs and instagram, I realize that this isn't exactly feasible, to expect people not to copy your designs while trying promoting yourself through pictures and tutorials in these same outlets. So, in my personal credo as an 'artist' (and I do use that term loosely) I pledge not to steal other people's work. I DO pledge to be inspired by, learn from, and give credit to the cake artists that I admire and follow.

So, when I get an order for a cake with very minimal requests, and the client says 'just do whatever you want, I trust you', there's a feeling of excitement and perhaps a little bit of anxiety. Both of the events pictured here were for very, VERY trusting people.

A fall themed wedding with golds, reds, pinks, and browns, and a joint baby shower for two sisters having babies just a few weeks apart. The wedding for my cousin was discussed over email from a few states away, and she put her trust in my to execute her ideas and make the trip up to Minnesota for her wedding, without even talking to me in person. For the baby shower, my boss's wife handed me her shower invitations and said 'do whatever you want, all I care about is chocolate'.

This is why I do what I do. The daily grind of production and working the line at the restaurant is a great, stable job, but the creating I get to do in the background is the icing on the cake.