Cake Story

My best friend and classmate since elementary days still couldn't believe I can bake a cake and decorate it too.

Customers would ask, "Where did you go for training?"

Former classmates couldn't believe I can even knead with a rolling pin.

Relatives and friends would ask, "How on earth did you start baking?" Did you really make that?"

Ok....Ok... I have a genie baker and a magic wand to decorate just like the fairy godmothers do in Sleeping Beauty the movie.

I can cook. That I am proud to say. I love cooking shows. Rachelle Ray, Hell's Kitchen, Masterchef, Nigella's Kitchen ... oh the list could go on. I honestly can feed a family. But baking? Nobody would believe me. What's so difficult with baking? Baking is  a science. Baking is precise. Baking needs exact measurements. What's so difficult with it? Mix dry to wet, bake, decorate. Done. Well I do respect the fact that some people are cooks and some are non cooks. But I do know for a fact that not everyone who can cook can bake.

I am not an artist as a person. I do not know how to draw. Give me a pencil to draw and you'll get scratchy, stick-drawing, unrecognizible, lousy drawing. I do not know how to coordinate colors. I am not vain as a person. A t-shirt and jeans person. No frills!

My mother used to bake. Upside down cake, sponge cake, coconut macaroons, pizza dough. Her cakes didn't have icing or any decoration at all. Just cake. I inherited her rolling pin and rusted, blackened pans. I was never interested in baking as a kid so I was not taught how. I just watched.

Fast forward. I mean back to 6 years ago, our manicurist sold to us a Kitchen Aid Mixer. It was brought home by an OFW (overseas Filipino worker) who didn't know anything about it. It wa sold to us at a very cheap price. SO, I tried my hand at baking myself. I stayed infront of the computer,  read, copied, and watched all about baking.

I prepared for the 18th birthday of my sister. There were a lot of disaster. Some burned, some didn't rise, some were pale, some super sweet and some are really non-edible.

Decorated? nah..it was messy. Not a picture worthy.. really.. Looking back at that picture. But it was an experience. I learned a lot. But that was just it. No continuation.

Just last year, my friends and I baked. We were taught how to make pandesal by a panadero. Our pandesal came out if not very hard, the texture of the bread was rough. We brought out our recipes and baked assorted cakes like banana cake, chiffon cake, marbled cake and chocolate cake. It was a weekend event. After baking at my friend's house, I would let my family taste what I did. This time i didn't have an oven for it gave up years ago. If I want to bake, I still have to travel to my friends' house which was very inconvenient for me.

So I decided to buy my own big, bakery oven on loan. And to pay the loan I have to get orders. That was how I finally went into business.

I began to have sleepness nights just to learn over the internet everything from icing, buttercream and fondant.  I visited every cake decorating tutorial I could find. Make friends with cake decorators around the world. Like every pastry, sugar art, sugar craft, fondant modelling/decorating pages on Facebook that I could find and EXPERIMENT. EXPERIMENT. EXPERIMENT.

I am proud to say that I am self-taught but would be very happy to undergo training from famous cake artist. My dream? To be able to meet the famous cake and cookie decorators and bloggers from around the world. And to build my own cake shop.