Starting a Custom Cake Decorating Home Business

As many of us know, ordering decorated cakes from the grocery stores or specialty cake shops are expensive. The more people you plan to feed, the larger the cake, and the price will become higher.

The prices of decorated cakes are based on the price per piece of cake per person. The size of a sheet cake is to serve cake proportionately per person is a one inch by one inch square. Wedding cakes are served on a one inch to one and half inch slice per person. An experienced cake decorator can elaborate more on the exact specifics of how the cakes are cut and served.

Anyone who has taken cake decorating classes or has experience in decorating cakes, can start their own home based cake decorating business. The more experience you have creates a wider market appeal. For those who are starting out with little experience can offer their services to family and friends to get their foot in the door for a home cake decorating business.

Before taking on paying cake decorating jobs, make sure that you know what you are doing. The nicer the cake looks upon presentation for the event that you decorated the cake for, the more people will ask about who decorated the cake. This can lead you to more cake decorating business.

You will need a work area in your home that has ample space to bake and decorate the cakes. You will need ample counter space for mixing and cooling cakes, enough room for various colors of frostings, and to decorate the cakes.

Basic Materials for Cake Baking and Decorating

Variety of Sizes and Shapes of Cake Baking Pans

The most common sizes of cakes are 8" x 13" rectangular, 6", 8", 10" and 12" round cakes, and character shapes. You will need at least two of the rectangular cake pans, two sheet cake pans, and two each of the round cakes pans as a minimum. You will want to purchase the character shape pans as order's warrant.

The basic sheet baking pans can be used for larger sized cakes. You will need to bake two to three cakes depending on the depth of the pans. The basic height of cakes that are purchased in stores is four inches high before being frosted. In some cases with sheet pans, the cake can be a bit taller after being frosted.