Personally I would probably do cakes for free for all of my friends and friends of friends just to get the experience and could probably fill every weekend doing this but it is a pretty big sacrifice on my family. The weeks I do cakes nothing gets done around the house and I am often up until midnight a few nights in a row. I am sure there are artists who understand this! People often ask me how I do it with two kids, so now you know!
The prices that I charge for my cakes may seem expensive but when you look at the ingredients that go into them (I use real chocolate and alot of butter - a cake can cost anywhere from $20 to $70 just to make) the time they take to make (the average time it takes me is about 6 hours and I have spent as much as 20 hours on one cake) as well as the fact that I have to rent a registered kitchen to make them in, then the price is pretty reasonable I think.
I would love everyone to have a Mrs Woolley's cake for their birthday but can understand in this economy that some just can't afford what I charge SO, I am willing to share some wisdom and expertise if you are wanting to have a go at making your own cake. Will your cakes be as good as mine to begin with? No, but neither were my first ones. You have to start somewhere and there are some very cool things you can do to make a cake fun and easy.
To begin with I thought I would share with you this basic chocolate cake recipe. No joke, this cake is the easiest cake I have ever made and quite possibly one of the tastiest! It doesn't come from a box and it is all mixed in one bowl. It doesn't even have butter in it is which makes it cheap as well! It is incredibly moist and dense and a perfect cake for your chocolate loving friend. You can find this recipe here. I followed the suggestions of others and upped the cocoa to 1 cup and I also think that the quality of cocoa you use is pretty important. I use a high quality cocoa powder and think that this does make a difference but it would most certainly be worth a try with a regular cocoa powder. Before making the cake simply line the bottom of the pan with baking paper and spray/butter the sides so that the cake comes out clean.
To ice the cake I simply iced with buttercream icing between layers and on top and skipped icing the sides. I think that this is a pretty easy not to mention an effective look to a cake, especially if you colour the icing. I made my icing pink for this cake because I made it for my daughter of course! On top I then made a bunting flag cake topper. This is really popular at the moment. You can do so much with this cake topper. Use it for a vintage wedding cake, a baby shower cake, a birthday cake for your friend and definitely a cake for your child's birthday party. You could make the flags black and red and put a racing car underneath or a monster truck for your sons birthday and you could made a pink banner and put a ballet figurine underneath for your daughter.
To make this flag you need two wooden kebob skewers, string approximately 8" long (20 cm), coloured paper and scissors or a utility knife. Fold your coloured paper in half and cut out 5, 1" wide and 1" long triangles so that when you unfold them you have two connecting triangles. (I cut out six because at the time I wasn't sure how many I would need) Tie each end of your string to the top of the wooden skewers (not the pointy end). Put the skewers into the cake so that they go in at a slight angle and pull the string so that it hangs ever so slightly. Then place your triangles next to each other along the sting. You could use any colour paper and scrapbooking paper has beautiful patterns to choose from. So easy huh? Please send me an email if you have any questions! I am more than happy to offer my advice.
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