What I want this post to be about, is the things that you won’t necessarily think to ask. The things that can stop you being let down by someone. And it happens. I’ve rescued brides from last minute absent cake traumas. So when you think you’ve found someone to make your cake, have a think about these things.

Firstly, every food business should be registered with the local council. Even if it’s a work from home business. This means that you’re on the radar for the Food Hygiene people and also for Trading Standards. There are inspections and labeling requirements for anyone producing food. (Am I registered? Yes. Have I been inspected? Yes – and they were happy!)

Secondly, public liability insurance is important. It’s mainly important for the business owner as it covers them, but I’d say that if someone has this in place then it’s a fair indication of how seriously they take their work. It covers you for things like exhibiting at bridal fairs. (Yes, I am covered by this type of insurance.)

Next – what if your cake maker is taken ill in the week before your wedding? What happens then. Food hygiene requirements are very strict around how soon you can work with food after you’ve had an upset tummy. So what if the worst happens and they get sick? (We have this one covered with there being two of us – me and my mum. Any sign of any kind of illness and there are serious quarantine procedures enforced!)

Also, have they made all the cakes that are shown in pictures on their website? Watch out for the small print…. ‘These pictures are shown for inspiration only’. Unfortunately cake picture theft is very common – other cake makers showing photographs of cakes they themselves haven’t made. Even if they give the original maker credit on the picture, how do you know that they themselves can make that kind of design to the quality seen in the picture? (All the pictures on this website are of cakes that we’ve made ourselves.)

And last – gut reaction. If someone gives me the hard sell over something my natural (awkward as my husband would say!) inclination is to go and do the exact opposite! I posted here about being asked how far in advance you need to book your wedding cake, and another cake-maker posted a comment on my Facebook page agreeing with my post and also saying ‘If you’re busy you don’t need to be pushy’. I think that says it all.

When you see a design you love, just take a moment to think about what’s behind it. And how safe are the hands you’re putting your wedding cake in.

Safe hands. Kind of important in a wedding cake maker.

I now have two very happy small boys – especially the littlest one, who was very excited at seeing all the engines. For a family day out you can’t beat it!

Buying the dress is a big thing. And for most people it may well be the first time they’ve tried on a wedding dress. Debbie put together the following guide to help any slightly apprehensive brides-to-be understand what to expect when they book a bridal consultation with her. I think this is fab and wanted to share it with you today.

Please click here to see the guide.

Please have a read, and pop over to the Glamour website or Facebook page for more details, or you can find Debbie on Twitter too.

I’m also an aunt of nephews. Two of them. Aged 7 (and three quarters!) and 4.

All this adds up to a lot of energetic small boy. Which in my book is the absolute best kind of boy. But it does lead to a serious lack of pink fairy castles. Mainly of the cake variety.

When I was about six my mum made me a fairy castle birthday cake. I loved it. All pink and lovely with turrets and everything. And there’s nothing I’d like more than to make one too. But the boys don’t seem so keen on this idea! Instead I make them cakes like this.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved making these cakes too. And seeing their faces when they see them. There’s nothing in the world like hearing my sons and nephews say ‘My mummy/Auntie Helen can make anything in cake’. But I have a serious longing to make a fairy castle cake. It doesn’t have to be huge. Or pink for that matter. A lilac one would be great too. I just need someone to order one.

Any takers?

I’m a sucker for anything in the teal or aqua colour range….and Tiffany blue has turned into a slight obsession! (I currently have Tiffany blue colour nail varnish on my toes!).

This gorgeous bracelet was made by Michelle at Meeka-Boo Designs. A new company, just starting out, and making some absolutely gorgeous jewellery. This piece is made from teal coloured leather and it’s really comfortable to wear. I just love it! Pop over to the Meeka-Boo Designs Facebook page and give them a like – and tell your friends!

‘How soon do we need to book for a wedding cake?’

Sounds a simple enough question doesn’t it. But to me it’s fraught with possibilities that people could take the answer the wrong way.

The answer is basically, ‘the sooner the better’. But if I say this, there’s a possibility that people might think I’m being pushy. I feel this most when I’m at a bridal fair. Most magazine articles about your wedding booking timeline seem to suggest booking your cake at around six months before the wedding. And I’ve read lots of blog posts and articles that warn brides about the shark-like tendencies of the suppliers you meet at a fair. Not to mention the fact that their special offers are always there to trick you into booking something that you don’t want. In all honesty, this is just not true. I’m sure there’ll be some who adopt a more aggressive sales pitch, and others who add 20% onto their prices so that they can offer 20% off again. But for the most part, the suppliers are like me. Small businesses. Most likely work from home. Attending a bridal fair so that they can meet lots of couples in one place – it’s basically a showroom for those of us without a shop.

So when someone asks me the question, I kind of panic a bit! I’m genuinely not pushy. Seeing a hard sell from anyone at all makes me cringe from a distance of 100 yards away. And I know that anyone pushing me to do one thing automatically makes me do the opposite!

The fact is, if you hit on a weekend where I don’t already have a booking then you can book two weeks before your wedding. But also, if you’re trying to book now for a 2013 wedding, there are some weeks that are already fully booked. So my answer is this:

If you know you’d like me to make your cake the sooner you secure your date the better. And it’s a deposit of just £75 that does that for you. I’m really pleased to say that I’m getting busier than ever and with more and more bookings coming in for 2013, there are some very organised people out there and very limited availability in some months. You don’t have to know final guest number or details of the design you’d like as all that can be finalised much nearer the time. So why not tick something else off your to do list? (Said in a not at all pushy fashion!)

I love being asked to make this kind of cake. When a request for a Narnia theme cake came through I knew it was a chance to have some icing fun, and to let my imagination go! So, here is the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe….

So here it is:

1 The smell – anyone who comes in my house comments about how lovely it smells. That they can smell the sugar (well as long as I’m not on a gingerbread baking marathon!). The mums at school say they can smell the sugar on me when I do the pick up from school. I guess there’s worse things to smell of! But day in day out, the sweetness gets a bit much!

2 Its unpredictability – it never seems to behave the same way twice. It folds in ways that you don’t want. When you think it’s lovely and smooth you move the cake into a different light and then you see an air bubble, or a line, or a crease.

3 Its reaction to atmosphere – Icing hates humidity. With a passion. It makes it sweat….literally. A lovely smooth, set surface will turn sticky and horrible if it gets too humid. Cue cake maker trauma!

4 It gives me the hands of a 90 year old – the icing sugar that is. The washing hands because you deal with food thing combines with the abrasive, drying quality of the icing sugar and gives me wrinkly, crinkly, dry and cracked hands.

5 The food colouring – it gets everywhere. And takes ages to come off. And I mean everywhere. It’s usually a couple of hours after colouring up a batch of blue icing that I notice the smudge of food colouring across my face!

6 The icing sugar – see number 5 re smudges on face. Also clothes and a general light dusting of the stuff on all surfaces in the kitchen!

7 The taste – I can no longer eat icing. At all. Spending so much time with the stuff means I can’t stand to eat it any longer.

So there it is. What I hate about the stuff. But this is on the days when it seems to fight against me. And take on a mind of its own! Most days it’s not like that at all. Most days I LOVE the stuff (except for the eating bit, I still can’t do that!). It’s fantastic for covering and modeling and shaping and piping. You can make patterns with it and on it, make people and animals and flowers…. And the best bit of all is that it’s like Play Dough….that you can eat! A grown up profession? In lots of ways. But mainly, secretly, it’s like being a kid again! Everyone should have at least one pack of icing in their life.

Ingredients:

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 150 degrees – a bit hotter if you don’t have a fan oven

Put the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and sugar in a bowl and mix it together.

In a different dish, beat the eggs with the oil and the zests. Mix in the carrots and then stir in the dry ingredients.

Spoon the mixture into a 20cm tin – you can use a bigger one, you can just won’t be as deep and vice verse. Or use a loaf tin instead.

Bake for 1hour 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. You can see our other tips on checking a cake is done here.

Once the cake is done, leave it to cool.

Beat the icing sugar, softened butter and cream cheese together to make the frosting. Spread it all over the cake – you could cut it through the middle too and put the frosting in the centre too. Once the cake is covered, decorate it with some pecan nuts if you like – I think these are less bitter than the more usual walnuts. But if you have small children you can leave them off.

So, this is what I know.

Working for yourself is the hardest thing you’ll ever do. I think the temptation is to think that being your own boss will automatically make everything easier. In some ways this is true. Your own time, your own decisions, all the rewards are yours. But there’s also the flip side. The buck stops with you. You have to be motivated and determined to make it work. You have to grow a thick skin and be disciplined and a bit on the awkward side! You have to have the will to keep going when it seems like things are against you, and the strength to work all the hours it takes!

Building a business takes time. I hear a lot of people talk about setting up their own business. And I think that’s great. With the economy the way it is I think anyone who chooses to work at something else to supplement their income and to spread their security across different income streams is to be commended. But it’s not a quick fix. You can’t just start a successful business. It takes time and energy and patience. I once heard someone say it takes two years to build a business. I think if you turn a profit within this time you’re doing really well! There’s a lot of up-front costs when you set up a business. And advertising to start with so that people know you’re there can be very expensive!

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. For me this mainly relates to advertising. It’s easy to be tempted by ‘we get 10,000 website hits a month and we only charge you £100 a month to be on our website’. But think about it. 10,000 hits is great, but how much business will you actually generate? If one person orders from you that’s cost you £100 for that one order! And if you aren’t VAT registered that advert will actually cost you £120 instead. Oh and you have to advertise for 3 months? That’s a really big outlay! Of course it may work wonderfully. But it’s a big risk to take! Find out what works for you and stick with it. Take a risk now and then, but make sure you can afford for it not to pay off. Trust your gut feeling and go with that.

Working from home has its benefits, and its disadvantages. Commute to your kitchen. Or workshop, or spare room. Sounds great. And it is! On those wet and wild days when you don’t want to leave the house. And on those sunny and warm ones where lunch in the garden is glorious. But it also means you have no door to close on it. An unfinished project stares at you every time you walk past! And working hours have a habit of stretching into weekends and evenings (she says writing a blog post on a Saturday lunchtime!). Oh and as a work at home mum….school holidays….let’s not even go there!

Cash is king. It’s easy to get hung up about whether you’re making a profit. When I was training as an accountant I remember them saying at college ‘cash is king’. And it’s true. You can have a really profitable business but if you have no cash in the bank to pay for your supplies how do you keep going? Big profit also means a bigger tax bill! Managing your cashflow is crucial, especially at the beginning. A big bill to pay just before a big receipt comes in….and there’s the problem.

Use free advertising – social media and word of mouth! Word of mouth is the best publicity. But get on social media too. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, whatever is your thing. But make it personal. Endless tweets of links to products will turn your followers away. They want to know you. You are your business and people like to know who they’re dealing with.

Plough your own furrow. It’s really easy to get caught up in what other people are doing. Especially with everyone talking about stuff on Twitter and the like. Have a look around. Compare your prices to others. But basically, once you find something that works for you, stick with it! Concentrate on your own products and methods and try not to get downhearted if it feels like every other person in your sector is selling thousands of products or taking seven bookings every hour. Find your niche and work within that.

Be brave. If you have a good product and you’re prepared to work hard then things will come good. It can be hard to persevere in those moments when it seems like it’s all hard work and no come-back. But keep going. It will come. I think it’s the Guinness advert isn’t it?….’Good things come to those who wait’. And work hard. And trust their instincts. Take your courage in your hands and give it a go. What is there to lose?

Two and a half years in and it has been and continues to be immensely hard work. There have been some days when I’ve thought that going back to an office job would, in some ways, be so much easier! But you know what? I wouldn’t change this for the world. This is harder work than I’ve ever done before. It’s joy and stress and worry and satisfaction all rolled up into one complicated feeling. But I’m so glad I did this. I’m so glad that, whatever happens in the next two and a half years, I can say I gave it my best shot. That I wasn’t afraid to try. And I’m happy with that.