If you have a knack for baking and you are able to make your sweet creations look as good as they taste, you may want to begin a cake decorating business. One great thing about a cake decorating business is that it can be as small or as large as you want it to be. Cake decorating tools are widely available, as are books about how to decorate cakes and books with design ideas. There are even cake decorating classes that you can take if you do not wish to teach yourself cake decorating at home.
Within cake decorating you can develop a niche for the kinds of cakes that you enjoy making the most. Some people love getting creative with cupcakes, and experimenting with frostings, fillings, and decorating ideas that can really make a style statement at a party, wedding, or other special event. Wedding cakes take quite a bit of time, patience, artistic ability, and freezer space but brides and grooms are willing to pay quite a bit of money for an amazing looking (and tasting) wedding cake. If you like to be fun and playful, you could carve out a niche market making and decorating cakes for children’s birthday parties. With the wide variety of fun, 3-D cake pans and children’s party themes out there, children’s cakes are so much fun to create. Busy parents take pride in planning a showstopping celebration for their little one, but they may not have time to bake a cake that they feel will impress their pint size partygoers (and their parents). They will happily pay you to bake up a princess castle, cartoon character, sports ball, or other type of cake to take center stage at their child’s party.
Before you take the plunge into decorating cakes as a business, make sure to check out all of the details by creating a business plan. At a bare minimum, you’ll want to check your local laws and rules regarding bakeries. Many states allow home bakeries, but your kitchen may need to be inspected, especially if you plan to operate the business full time. Also, be sure to think about everything that you will need to purchase before you get started, and make sure that you can afford to do that. If after doing up a business plan it looks like you will be able to start a cake decorating business, go for it and have some fun baking cakes that will wow your clients and their guests.
Photo by jade on morguefile.com.