i’m learning as I go, but I’m proud of how far I’ve come! the last image is the very first cake I ever decorated, and it resulted in my friends and family encouraging (peer pressuring) me to start a business

update: i am beyond overwhelmed by how much love this post has received! i tried to reply to everyone, but there are so many kind messages. thank you to everyone for the sweet words, they truly mean so much and are incredibly motivating 🎂

This was a birthday cake for a friend’s little sister! She requested a chocolate cake with a medieval theme for the decorations. She also gave me creative freedom so I was finally able to try out a stained glass design I’ve had saved on Pinterest for years😆

For his birthday this year my son challenged me to do my first ever hyper realistic cake. I can't say that I nailed it, but I'm happy with it for a first attempt. We got to have our own little game of Is It Cake?

First try at making a cake like this. I’m still pretty new to decorating cake. Piping is a bit uneven but I’m still very happy how it turned out!

Edit: Didn’t expect the comment section to be flooded with cravings for pasta and rotisserie chicken 😂
But thank you so much for the lovely comments everyone, means a lot!!

Every year for my birthday my friend and I make a strange shape cake. Hyper realism is never the goal, though it has happened unintentionally the last few years. Here is 40!

Pistachio cake with purple frosting (because we thought it would be pretty but purple turned out to be a PITA), modeling chocolate and wafer paper for the leaves. We ran out of chocolate 90% through and had to improvise with fondant.

Just wanted to share some birthday cakes I've done in the last couple months! It means so much to me that my family and friends trust me to do their cakes ❤️

Pic 1/2. vanilla cake with raspberry filling, topped with lemon curd. Vanilla buttercream.

1. Marble cake with whipped chocolate ganache filling and black cocoa buttercream

4/5. Strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting filling, raspberry filling, raspberry cheesecake, and vanilla cream cheese buttercream

6/7. Red velvet with cream cheese frosting

8/9. Vanilla cake with whipped raspberry filling and vanilla buttercream

10/11. Chocolate cake with marshmallow frosting filling and fudgy chocolate frosting

12/13. Cotton candy cake with whipped vanilla pudding filling and vanilla buttercream

I followed an inspo pic (by request) fairly closely for a couple, i'll include those in the comments 😊

Made with edible images because I’m not talented enough to paint on a cake 😅 so amazed at people who can

My best friend’s birthday theme was “She’s a GEMini” 💎♊️ The gems are non-edible crafting sew-in rhinestones from Amazon. I added a strip of parchment paper between the crumb coat and final coat to provide a barrier and easily peel them off before cutting the cake ☺️

I am so lucky my bosses let me experiment

I don’t do any cake decorating outside of birthdays, so my skills aren’t the best, but I was so relieved with how this turned out 🥰

A birthday cake for a colleague - mini savoy cabbages, wombok, pea pods, carrots, beetroots, cauliflowers, one lonely leek (lost interest after one) and yes, eggplants - all of which I made out of sugarpaste.

The cake itself is vanilla cake with Buddha’s hand syrup that I bought from the amazing L'Agrumiste citrus specialist shop in Paris (see last pic for a look at this exquisite store), lemon curd, crushed cashew and smoked salt praline, and chopped up stroopwafels.

I've been wanting to try this style for a long time and decided my sister's birthday cake was the perfect opportunity. If I screwed up I knew it would be forgiven 😄.

It turned out better than I expected although I think it could have been better with a different frosting. It's definitely a time consuming technique but I really enjoyed it!

Was incredibly happy about how this cake, and the dozen and a half matching rose cupcakes, turned out and thought nothing of packing this cake up. I wasn't there when the order was picked up, but apparently the person came to pick up the order and started screaming about how the cake was wrong, we ruined the birthday party and I should be fired for doing this. The thing wrong with the cake... There are green leaves on the roses. My adding green leaves around the roses, as I always do with flowers, supposedly ruined the whole cake and from what I've heard, should have been grounds for my being fired.

I made this cake was for my daughter's birthday last month. It was the most time-consuming cake I have ever made, but I love the look of it... over 1,600 circles cut from rice paper.

A cake that’s just a little bit fishy; two colleagues with birthdays this week, so it’s a twofer cake – the top per his favourite flavours, being a strawberry cake with 2.5kg of fresh strawberries blended, reduced into a thick puree and baked into it; chopped strawberries macerated in mirin gastrique (a better balsamic, if you ask me, mirin reduced to a thick stickiness); and crushed vanilla cookies.

The bottom cake is all her – buttery almond cake with the merest soupçon of Armagnac brushed over the warm cakes, pistachio feuilletine paste (basically crunchy pistachio cream), crushed pistachio and smoked salt praline and Amarena cherry jam.

As to the fish, why the fish? Why not. I love a little fish, me, and made an edible silver leaf sardine and inspired by @soulcakeshop on IG, made a school of little fishies, one swimming determinedly in their own self-pleasing and self-pleased direction, come what may. 😌

My friend likes this animal for some god forsaken reason lmao

Cake and some cupcakes for a birthday party ☺️

This was an order for a one year old’s birthday and it was to feed 80 people. What one year old knows 80 people. Anyway it was HUGE, 16”x12” 4 layer eggless vanilla, with homemade raspberry jam and vanilla buttercream.

Gosh I think I mixed up about 20 different colours/shades for this. For the foods I painted them onto parchment paper and then chilled them to make them easy to remove and pop on, took forever but I love how it all turned out

Our 5yo wanted a K-pop Demon Hunter birthday and insisted on a Derpy Tiger cake. Everyone thought it was pretty great.

A little floral cake I made recently.

Inside was alternating layers of vanilla and lemon cake with cherry and mixed berry filling.

Unfortunately I never received a cross section picture (despite asking for one). I always like to see how everything looks once it's cut!

Made this for my birthday in a few weeks. Really encapsulates me as a person. Really proud of myself Inside is almond cake with cherries between the layers. Cherry almond cream cheese frosting

Birthday cake for my 5yo. Unfortunately the Fondant Skin tore apart. Probably got too moist from the frosting. Fortunately the smarties cover it up quite nicely 😅

Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, covered with Fondant and Smarties.

I am quite happy with how it turned out ☺️

Used way too much red food colouring gel and stuffed up a little but it was my first time decorating a cake. My daughter loves Elmo and it was her 1st birthday. Made the mistake of removing it's eyes and nose before serving in front of her though and she seemed mortified lol 😆 won't make that mistake again.

This was a team effort. I shaped the cake and my 17 year old daughter frosted it. I wish there was a little more contrast with the cutting board and countertop. Oh well.