CAKE DECORATING By: Katlin Hunnicutt

OUTLINE  Research Paper  Project hours  Pictures  What I’ve learned through this process  Successes  Challenges  Mentor Reflection  Conclusion

RESEARCH PAPER  Thesis : Cake decorating has been around ever since the 1700's. To be a perfect decorator one must have a lot of skill and be able to have patience. In Today business the most skilled decorators sell the most cakes.

INTERESTING FACTS  “The worlds largest birthday cake was 130,000 pounds, 102-feet long, 52- feet wide and 20 inches tall.”  “March of 2013, a bakery in Chester, England, displayed the worlds most expensive wedding cake, valued at $52.7 million.”

PROJECT HOURS  Hours spent on project:  On Sept From 10 am to 1pm. For 3 hours. Me and my mentor baked two small cakes and a bunch of little one bite cup cakes for my baby shower and she taught me how to make and color icing. She also showed me the right way to icing a cake and helped me learn how to make little duckies out of icing.

PROJECT HOURS CONTINUED  Hours spent on project:  On Nov From 10 am to 3 pm. For 5 hours. Me and my mentor baked 24 cupcakes for a 31 party we went to, and she taught me how to make different Christmas decorations on the cup cakes. We made 6 Snowman cupcakes, 6 upside down Santa in the snow, 6 Penguins, and 6 Christmas trees.

PICTURES The tiny cupcakes and cake we made. Before being decorated. After we put the cake together and decorated it. My mentor showing me how to hold the decorating bag.

PICTURES CONTINUED Me and my mentor decorating a snowman cupcake. Me trying to decorate a penguin. After all the cupcakes were decorated.

WHAT ALL I’VE LEARNED THROUGH THIS PROCESS  I’ve learned how to make home-made buttercream icing.  How to hold the decorating bag, when decorating the cake. I found it’s easier for me to tie the top of the decorating bag, so all the icing doesn’t fall out the top.  What tips to use to make certain designs.  Where to start when icing a cake.  What I’ve also learned through this process is to have patience, because decorating can take up a lot of your time.

SUCCESSES What made me proud the most is when after my mentor showed me where to start on the cupcake and which way is the easiest to do that certain type of design, I tried it myself and it actually turned out really good. I was proud of how well I caught on and how much patience I really have when it comes to something I really wanted to learn.

CHALLENGES Some of the challenges I had was learning how to use your whole hand when decorating instead of just using your thumb and finger when writing, but after practicing I eventually got the hang of it. Another challenge I had faced was getting the design to turn out exactly how I wanted it to look, but I made sure to make more cupcakes then I needed to so I could practice on them first to get the hang of it. Me learning how to make icing.

MENTOR REFLECTION  My Mentor is Cecilia Hunnicutt  She works for Whole Foods as a cake decorator.  My mentor really helped me out a lot, and was very good at explaining on how to do the certain designs. She was really patient when teaching me and she never did rush when decorating she took her time and taught me if you want the design to look good you have to take your time and never to rush. She didn’t only teach me how to decorate cakes but also taught me a life lesson to never try to speed something up because the longer you take the better the outcome will be.

CONCLUSION  What the future looks like for me in cake decorating is I want to use all the skills and designs I learned through this process and make my own cakes for people in my family for their birthdays and even for the holidays.  In the future I don’t really want to get a job as a cake decorator because I really want to do Sonography, which is a ultrasound technician, but I definitely see cake decorating as being a future hobby.  I did like everything I learned through my experiences with cake decorating, it’s just not the career I would want to choose for my future.