Since 1998, I have taught over 500 students the basics of cake decorating, and a good number of those have also learned advanced cake decorating techniques and about cookies, cupcakes and candies from me as well. I'm very confident that those 500 students can bake, frost and decorate a simple yet elegant cake for just about any occasion.
I have also had the honor of teaching several employees of local bakeries, some of them recently hired and in need of basic decorating skills for their new job. I'm confident that they too have gone on to create amazing cakes at work.
So it makes me a little bit sad when I see really badly decorated cakes out there. Funny, yes (unless you actually paid for one of them). Outrageously funny even. But it also shows how many cake decorators are not trained for their jobs, and that's unfortunate. I'd hate any job I wasn't trained for, and I'm betting many of these folks don't love not knowing what they're doing.
The one thing many grocery store/discount store bakeries do provide is DecoPac training tools. DecoPac is the company that designs the grocery store cakes you can order from a catalog of choices. The cakes are often simply decorated and finished with plastic toy toppers. Americans must love them--they sell them in practically every large store bakery. I know my own kids love paging through the catalog at Target, oohing and aahing over the licensed character cakes! DecoPac, on their end, provides training tools for each of their cakes--detailed descriptions and instructions on how to make a cake that looks exactly like the design. Not particularly inspired, I will admit, but a fool-proof recipe for a decent cake if you follow the directions. And that's a big IF.
DecoPac designs get a bad rap from some people. Given how some so-called 'decorators' turn out their cakes, that's understandable. However, Sweetest Whimsy loves DecoPac because it's a great source of supplies as well as ideas for cakes and cupcakes. I don't love all of their ideas for sure, but I appreciate the idea of standardizing and streamlining cake designs for the big box store bakeries. These bakeries pay their too-few bakery employees not enough money and expect them to churn out a dozen cakes in a mere couple of hours; one-of-a-kind masterpieces they are not. (That's where the little ol' baker like me comes in!)
Here's an example of taking a cute DecoPac design and customizing it for my own clients:
Small Disney Princess Castle Cake by DecoPac
Larger version, same designAnd here is what I did with it. I prefer not to go with all the plastic frou-frou, and pare down the design a bit. I've made this cake several times, each time a little bit differently from the last.
