September’s Cakes

This month, we are featuring September (how fitting!) who owns a home-based cake decorating business in Woodstock, Ontario, Canada.

Tell us about yourself.
My name is September! I’m a wife and mom of three young children age 1, 3 and 5. I’m a professional accountant, but currently a stay at home mom. I love to bake and decorate cakes, cupcakes, cookies, and macarons!

How did you start making cakes? How long have you been in the cake decorating business?
I have always enjoyed baking. I never had any formal baking or cake decorating training. About six and a half years ago, I made my “first cake”, after being inspired by my dear friend who had her own cake business. I’d never seen fondant before and I was so intrigued! She helped me make my first tiered, fondant covered, Cowboy themed cake for my brother and his two kids birthdays! After that I was hooked, I started making cakes for all my family members’ birthdays. I have 6 siblings and 15 nieces and nephews, so I got quite a lot of practice! As time went by, every now and then a friend would ask me to make a cake an occasion, usually a themed, fondant-covered cake. I even had the opportunity to make my sister’s wedding cake!

I found Rosie’s Dessert Spot on YouTube and watched all her videos. I completely fell in love with drip cakes! This changed my trajectory as I started to make cakes without fondant. (Which I found myself getting increasingly frustrated with. ) The discovery of buttercream cakes reignited my passion for cake. Last fall, I was asked to make a lumberjack-themed cake for a friend and discovered Sugar Geek Show. After I began to watch these tutorials, I realized how much more could be done with fondant and I’ve started to enjoy working with it again in new and exciting ways!

I joined Instagram at the beginning of this year and started posting pictures of my cakes from over the years. Posting photos of all my cakes seemed to trigger an influx of cake requests from friends and family. Things are really taking off for me and it’s got me dreaming of opening up my own cake shop in the future!

Do you have any favorite tools in your cake toolkit?
My favourite cake tools include my turntable and bench scrapers. These are essential for achieving those smooth buttercream edges! Also, my Kitchen Aid stand mixer is a game changer! My offset spatula (palette knife) I love to use for icing my cakes, I use a small 6 inch one because I feel that it lends me greater control.

Do you have any advice for someone who is starting out in the cake decorating business?
-Use social media to your advantage.
-Take your photos next to a window for natural light and use a backdrop (which can be a simple poster board) to have bright photos.
-Find your own style! Your cakes don’t have to look like everyone else’s!

Cakes I’ve done

Baby Shark Cake

This Baby Shark cake was so much fun to create! I loved that it was a buttercream cake brought to life with the under the sea fondant details. It’s one cake that turned out just the way I wanted it to, so that makes it easy for me to love.

Horse Cake

This horse cake was a bit of a spin-off of the unicorn cake trend!

Lumber Jack Cake

My lumberjack cake which was made with the help of a Sugar Geek Show tutorial. The cake was plaid inside – chocolate, red velvet, and dyed vanilla cake! This cake is covered in chocolate bark and the gravity-defying ax is made of modeling chocolate and fondant!

Mermaid Style Cupcakes

These cupcakes were carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese icing, decorated in mermaid style for my niece’s birthday! This photo was shared by Wilton and subsequently numerous other Instagram accounts, which still amazes me.

Elegant Pinks & Purple Cake with Macarons

This is a lemon cake with blueberry buttercream filling. I made the macarons myself, which were also blueberry flavored! This is one cake that did not turn out as I envisioned it, so it took me a little while before I knew if I liked it or not. I have decided that I love it, especially the textured buttercream on the sides!

Girly Overload Cake

This is the first cake that I made with a smooth buttercream finish! After watching all of Rosie’s dessert Spot YouTube videos, I made this loaded white chocolate mud cake with drips. Those shiny balls are cake pops covered in ganache and luster dust. It will always be a special cake for me as it was the first time I ventured away from fondant!

Umbrella Baby Shower Cake

This was a baby shower cake that I made for a friend. The theme of the shower was umbrellas, clouds, and raindrops. This is a London Fog flavoured cake – chocolate cake, earl grey Swiss meringue buttercream and salted caramel sauce. It was so exciting serving this cake to my friends who had never before tried this flavour combination in a cake! I love how the buttercream watercolour effect turned out on the sides. It was topped with a gum paste umbrella and meringue raindrops.

More Cakes!

Steam Punk Cake

Sunflower Cupcakes

Oreo Cookies Cake

Follow September and her gorgeous cakes on her Instagram.

Thanks so much, September, for sharing your lovely cakes! They all look amazing and SO yummy. I am rooting for you to get your cake studio one day!!