Me and my bakes | Introduce yourself

I’m Kate, I’m 25 from Liverpool, England.
The reason I’ve made this blog is because I wanted to share my baking experience with, well, anyone that’s interested really, and it would be nice to look back in years to come.

So, about 3 years ago, I had a full-time office job (still do!) and didn’t have any hobbies, everyone has a hobby, right? I like being creative, so, I tried making scented candles from scratch, the girls in work gave me their old used coffee jars and I bought the other items needed, I did enjoy it and they did look good, but after dozens of attempts, the smell was not noticeable once the candle was lit, so annoying (!!) I gave up.
I knew I needed something else to focus on, so I went to an antique furniture shop and bought 2 chairs for £10 each, they definitely needed some TLC, so I sanded, painted and re-upholstered them and sold them on eBay, fair to say I did make some money off of them, but I didn’t get much enjoyment out of being covered in paint and not having a space of my own to paint in.

Then I realized, I love baking, it’s something I’ve loved since a young age,

Cupcakes I made 6 years ago using my very first piping bag I got as a gift. This photo makes me cringe but I keep it to remind myself how far I’ve come.

so, why not try to teach myself how to make my bakes look a little bit more professional? So, after binge watching American cake competition shows, I thought “I can do that!“. I went onto eBay and bought the cheapest ‘necessities’ I needed. This included a turntable that didn’t turn and a 50 piece fondant cutter set from China that came in a box too small that the cutters were poking out the sides. This then led me to ask my friend if I could make her a birthday cake, of course she said yes (stupid question really, it’s free cake) She left me to do whatever I wanted, I had to be ~extra~ and do a rainbow cake didn’t I? This wasn’t too bad, but, when it came to the decorating, I thought ‘how hard could it be?!‘……it turns out very.
Long story short, I finished the cake, boxed it up, the next day went to work, had an epiphany and text my sister “do me a favour, that cake, just scrape all the icing off, I don’t like it”. Bare in mind this cake was my first ever decorated cake, it was FREE and my friend let me do whatever I wanted with it, so why was I so annoyed with myself that I didn’t like the design? God knows.

My first ever ‘decorated’ cake.
Anyway, I got home from work and I completely re-decorated the cake, I thought it looked okay. I look back now, there are a thousand things I’d change about it, the main one being the colour combination, pink and green, really though?! Although I was really pleased at my first attempt of sugar roses.
I drove to her house to deliver it and she was made up, she was taking pictures and putting it on Instagram and people were commenting on how nice it looked, I couldn’t believe it.

This brings us to now, I’ve made tonnes more cakes and other bakes here and there. When someone asks me to make them a cake, I both want to do a little happy dance and have a breakdown at the same time. Because, its genuinely so flattering when someone wants YOU to bake for them and their family, but, it is also terrifying, some people have the outlook of “it’s not a party without cake” (let’s be honest, it’s not) but, that brings me to the scary realisation that this cake is not JUST A CAKE, its f*%king important. What if it goes wrong? What if they ask me to do something I’m not comfortable doing yet? Can I say no? I have a full time job, am I going to have time to do this and still eat and sleep?! I really need to calm down as 9 times out of 10, there’s no problem and I panic for nothing.

I find faults in everything I bake, of course I do, but its taken me so long to realise that I’m only ever going to see the faults, I do try to spot the good things instead of what I wish I could change.

Here are some things I’ve baked over the last 2 years, to be honest, half of these were not for anyone in particular, sometimes I just want to practice something different. My family is sick of eating cake now, it’s a good job the girls in work like it! (you should see the faces they pull when I walk in without a cake in tow…)

I will try to post maybe once a week with something that I’ve baked, I will be honest and show the trials and errors as I am still learning myself, so I’m open to feedback.

Thanks for reading!

Kate.