Bespoke Cakes Peterborough – How to make your cakes stand out from the crowd

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Carol

So you’re either just starting out on your cake journey or have been making cakes for sometime and are thinking how can I make my cakes stand out from the crowd? I have run my cake business for almost 13 years now and one of the main things I pride myself in is the finishing. I will give you some hints and tips on how to make your cakes stand out from the crowd, grabbing the attention of your ideal clients.

The covering of your cake

You might not think this but imagine having two almost identical cakes besides each other. One you can see fingerprints on or has some dents and the other is perfectly smooth with no lumps and bumps. It’s kind of similar to when you go shopping and there are two loaves of bread on the shelf. One is a bit squashed and doesn’t look that appealing, the other one looks perfect. Which one would you buy?

So I guess what I am trying to say is, when you ice your cake make sure you smooth out any fingerprints or lumps and bumps. This will certainly make a difference when people are looking at your cakes

The Sharp Edge Smoother will help getting the cakes sides nice and smooth. For more information please click HERE

Ice your cake board

This is something that I have done from the very beginning (well apart from the one on the left below) It took me ages to find a cake where I hadn’t iced the board. Icing the cake board also finishes the cake. You can include the board in the design for example it could be iced to look like grass, water or a floorboard.

You can see below with the two cakes what I mean by finishing the cake.

]Your imagination can really go wild with ideas. Sometimes you may not have enough room on your cake for models/characters so this is where having an iced board will come in handy as you can place them on there.

Wood or floorboard is a great effect, really easy to create and can be done in a few colours too.

Water or a grass board is excellent if you don’t have enough room on your cake for the sugar models. Your cake can look too busy if it was covered with the characters.

Painting the board can really make an impact on your cake especially if there is anything on the cake the same colour. As you can see on the Roller skate cake, the name is in the rainbow colours.

Who doesn’t love the Minions, here we have created the floor that you can see in the very first Minion film. There are many texture and embossing sheets that will help you create these effects.

Be different

Now I’m not saying that YOU have to be different but what I am saying is that make your STYLE different from the rest. Be unique, make your cakes look different from everyone else’s. There are so many cake makers now and most will be offering the same designs, so this is where you can be different.

But if you want to make a name for yourself and get people to sit up and take notice, then you gotta push yourself to think outside the box and INVENT or REINVENT something to create a style that is distinctly YOU.

Try not to copy

When it comes to designing your cakes, try not to copy other cake makers designs but use your own creativity, your customer will be very grateful for this. I am often sent pictures of cakes from clients and I always say that ‘I can do something similar to that design’ My reason for saying SIMILAR is that the picture they sent me wasn’t my design and how I decorate a cake will be different from the original designer.

For example: I was asked to recreate the cake on the left which is one of Peggy Porschen stunning Wedding cakes. The one on the right is the one I recreated. As you can see they are different (mine did also have fresh flowers on too)

Invest in your business

We all know that setting up a cake business can be expensive. Not only do you have cake tins to purchase you will also need the cake decorating tools. When I first started, some of my cake tins were second hand which I still have to this day.

You can often find tools that can be used for cake decorating in DIY stores or craft shops that aren’t sold as cake tools

For example – Paint palettes these are perfect for making flowers and shaping flower petals.

Plastic scrubbing brush – great for grass, sand and snow texture.

There’s no need to buy every cake tool you see as the chances are you’ll not use them. You need to look at the tool and say to yourself ‘do I really need it and would I use it.’ If the answer is no, PUT IT BACK ON THE SHELF

You need to buy tools that will help you to be creative and make your cakes stand out from the crowd.

If you feel that you need help with your cake skills, there are many local and online cake decorating and Sugarcraft schools that you can sign up to.

If you would like to see what cake classes we offer please see HERE

Presentation

To me this again is something that I take pride in. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that others don’t but to me the end result is what your potential client will see.

Ribbon your board – this may not seem that important but can make a huge difference. You can tie the colour of the ribbon with the design on the cake- something that will enhance or bring out the colours on the cake. You can see in the image below I used a lilac colour which was also part of the cake design.

Photographs – you want to get these right as in, if you post a pic on your website or social media and it’s blurry , this won’t get much attention. Whereas if you have a good quality and well presented picture of your cake it will stand out from the crowd!

Gone are the days where we just plonk the cake on the table and hope for the best, taking pictures of your cakes is something of an art within itself.

Backdrops

Get a backdrop – try not to get anything too fussy as this will distract the eye from the cake

There are many that you can buy and to start with you’ll only need the one as you can use the reverse side too!

You can also use wallpaper especially on the smaller cakes. Again try to keep it quite plain as you want to show off your cake not the wallpaper, a brick wall is a great backing.

Some examples:

TOP TIP : Go and get wallpaper samples from your local DIY store they’re free!

Try different backings with your cake as what you think will look great doesn’t always show off your cake.

You can see in the below picture what I mean. I really thought that the black one would be best but as you can see the White one showed it off more, so that’s the one I used.