Confessions of a Cake Decorator

I can never make things easy on myself. I had a job once that was super easy. No pressure. Little stress. I even worked alone. So naturally, I had to leave and find something more torturesome.

I love baking and cake decorating. I have been doing it for about 5 years now professionally. The last job I had was so challenging I would literally lie awake at night stressing about how to decorate the next day’s cakes. Ugh. That was terrible. Apparently, decorating insomnia is a real thing.

It also didn’t help that my boss was extremely critical. She can’t help it though. It’s why she’s good at her job. I however work better with a mix of positive and negative feedback.

I finally decided it was time for a change and landed an amazing new job! This one is challenging in a new way: I am a pastry chef now instead of just a cake decorator. The thing is — I’ve been a baker and I’ve been a decorator, but I’ve never been both at the same time which apparently is what being a pastry chef is all about.

I remember the days when we had new staff members making all of our large batches of frosting. God how I took them for granted. I do all the frostings now and let me just say, it is a tiring ordeal. Lifting that large bowl and scraping it out is certainly a workout in and of itself. We had a team of bakers baking all the cakes…