The Art and Struggle of Cake Decorating: A Personal Account

As I stood in front of my kitchen table, surveying the state of my cake decorating project, I couldn't help but feel a sense of trepidation. The pies didn't look perfect, and I was determined to make them look even more imperfect, like they were made by hand. "I'm going to fold it under," I told myself, "I don't want perfectly straight lines. I don't want it to look like it came off a machine." This decision was not just about aesthetics; it was also about attitude. I didn't want my cake to look too perfect, too polished. It needed to have a certain...humanity.

But why? Why did I feel this way? Was it because of the factory-produced nature of most cakes and pastries? Did I genuinely believe that McDonald's had a team of expert pie-makers working tirelessly behind the scenes? The thought made me chuckle, but also made me realize that my perception of perfection was rooted in something deeper. It was about authenticity, about imperfection.

As I began to paint the cake with a mixture of ivory and taupe, I felt a sense of calm wash over me. The paint seemed to bring out the texture of the fondant, making it look like cooked pastry. But just as things were starting to come together, disaster struck. As I cut into the pie, I discovered that the apples had melted the fondant from underneath, leaving behind a milky liquid. It was a catastrophe.

I stood there, staring at the mess in front of me, feeling a mix of emotions: disappointment, frustration, and despair. But as I looked closer, I realized that this was not just about the cake; it was about myself. It was about my own insecurities and doubts. I had been putting so much pressure on myself to create the perfect cake, the one that would impress everyone.

So, what did I do next? Well, I decided to take a step back and regroup. I needed some encouragement, some motivation. That's when I remembered why I started baking in the first place: for fun. For the joy of creating something beautiful and delicious. And so, I took a deep breath and began to paint on the inner edges of the cut, adding a touch of color to the otherwise pale surface.

But just as things were starting to look up, disaster struck again. The liquid from the melted fondant had begun to seep out of the openings in the pie, creating a puddle below the cake. It was like the cake was trying to tell me something: "You can't control everything, you need to let go."

And so, I did what any self-respecting baker would do in this situation: I added some sugar to the mix. Not just any sugar, but coarse rock candy that I had bought specifically for this occasion. I sprinkled it sparingly around the edges of the pie, hoping that it would help to hide the liquid and bulk up the cake.

As I looked at the cake now, I realized that sometimes, things don't go as planned. But that's okay. It's how we respond to those setbacks that matters. Do we give up, or do we try again? In this case, I chose to keep going, adding a few apples here and there to bulk up the pie and hide the liquid.

And that's when it hit me: sometimes, it's not about creating perfection; it's about embracing imperfection. It's about taking risks and trying new things, even if they don't work out as planned. And so, I decided to call a truce with my cake, to accept its imperfections and find the beauty in them.

In the end, it was not just about the cake; it was about me. It was about learning to let go of my need for perfection and embracing the messy, imperfect nature of life.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eni regret the moment i made the decision to make this cake i'm really not looking forward to this this week i made a giant mcdonald's apple pie i could have chosen anything from mcdonald's and this is what i chose i'm trying to decide what would look the best i love cakes how would you do the inside i'll put a layer of apple cider but this is indians yeah fondant i had to watch it destroy itself in front of my face this cake tried to beat me and it might have won the only one that bothers me so you're saying you're gonna basically have to risk it this is my cake confession such a nice ponytail leo at least i know how to make a ponytail that's my next channel how to ponytail it it all started on i don't remember what day of the week it was monday morning i had baked some vanilla spice cakes the night before and my vanilla spice cake if you don't know is basically my ultimate vanilla batter and then i layer in some of my spice mix into the batter and bake it it didn't it wasn't all bad halfway through it was excellent we actually have to give them some other information jocelyn because here in toronto mcdonald's apple pies look a certain way when i started to look at pictures i saw versions with a lattice jocelyn and i went to a mcdonald's an american mcdonald's drive-through to purchase an apple pie which i took across the border but then who was i talking to healthy junk food said that in florida they look like ours i i'm totally confused like what state are you from where are you from where in the world are you from it's mcdonald's and tell me what your apple pie looks like there's probably you know what orahan said in turkey they serve it with ice cream around it what the heck they're getting like all this special apple pie treatment now i'm going to layer each cake into two layers so the cakes i baked are two rectangular cakes but one is larger than the other because when i worked out how to scale the pie i need it to be longer than any pen that i own so i'm i'm going to line up the cakes the bigger rectangle and then the smaller rectangle on its side one long rectangle i'm happy with the shape of my cake i'm going to take it apart lay out all the layers and with the helpers or squeeze simple syrup them while my simple syrup is soaking in i'm going to take the time to make some cinnamon buttercream because like i said apple pie makes me think of cinnamon so cinnamon buttercream it is i simply just like to stir cinnamon into my italian meringue buttercream until i like the taste of it now that's a recipe it's time to fill and stack these cakes with the cinnamon buttercream and when i do this i realize i want the cake to be a bit higher so i'm glad i saved my humps i'm gonna take those cake humps and you know trim them up remove caramelization and add them to the top just to give my like the base of my apple pie a little more height now i'm going to carve this cake to resemble the shape of a mcdonald's apple pie which is basically a rectangle but then you sort of round down the top edges you know what i'm saying and it's sort of like pinched together at the bottom i like this hand action so it's very simple carving like i said at this point i still had hopes and dreams once i'm happy i can crumb coat and chill this entire cake with my cinnamon buttercream you're gonna notice as this interview goes on i've been saying once you're happy i'm going to stop saying that at some point in this discussion because i stopped being happy since i've gone to a cake decorating therapist i actually think this is a brilliant idea cake decorators need their own therapists but when you're a cake decorator you have all these problems that are very specific to cake decorating that no one understands unless they've attempted to do this uh because it's apple pie i wanted to have apples in this cake because it's apple pie i mean it's a pretty logical thought i think so i'm just gonna use my rubber spatula to sort of scoop out the sliced apples because they're already cooked they're already cool and i will flavor them with a little more cinnamon so i just i i used like 14 cans of apple pie filling i have i have my cake i love the shape of it i have my apples they look good they're exactly what i want to see peering through the lattice and basically what i've decided to do is place a layer of these apples on top of the cake so you're not really mounding it you're just putting one layer across that top portion of cake and this will peek through our fondant later on who knew that apple pie filling could destroy fondant as well as my soul i mean i know this here's the thing i know this i know that fondant doesn't like moisture even if you cover a cake and there's a drop of water or i remember when i would deliver wedding cakes i would put like saran wrap all the way around the box if it was raining or snowing because just one little droplet of snow just starts to eat away at the fondant but because i sort of went through the process of straining the apples and i didn't really think that they were liquidy i didn't think it would have the same effect so what did they do they did everything to prove me wrong that's what they did now it's time for fondant i'm gonna try and remember i was still happy when i was rolling out this fondant so i'm going to measure my cake and then roll out my tan fondant a bit bigger than my cake and i have to carefully pick it up on a french rolling pin and unravel it over the cake now instead of what i usually do which is trim the fondant at the bottom edges i'm not going to do that because the pies don't look perfect so what i'm going to do is fold it under i don't want perfectly straight lines i don't want it to look like it came off a machine even though it probably did i don't think that there's like a mcdonald's factory with like a bunch of people just pan making pies yeah i don't i could be wrong you can correct me if i'm wrong it is time to paint this cake even though i still have to cut the fondant and create the lattice look i'm using a mixture of ivory i'll always smile for ivory ivory has never let me down unlike apples ivory is greater than apples so i'm going to use a bit of taupe which is like a grayish color just to dull it a little but you won't even notice i'm going to mix it with clear food grade alcohol and then paint it over the entire surface of my fondant so it looks like cooked pastry i've decided to paint it now one because it'll give the paint more time to dry and two because i feel like if it's cut open and i paint a lot of the liquid could sort of fall into the apples so i'm just going to paint it so i'm going to make a template for the lattice i'm drawing a template freehand which is always a painful experience for me and then i'm just going to lay it on top of my cake and use a sharp paring knife to cut out all the openings and what's great is even if you don't follow the template perfectly it doesn't matter because it's not about perfect lines it's about to get much less perfect and this is where it all goes wrong so before i show you actually i need you to subscribe to this channel i need it now more than ever because after 21 years i'm thinking i might quit cake no yeah i need you to keep me can we make this like a hotline i wish we could suddenly have everyone here like do you remember that remember when people would call in i need encouragement so as i peel off the fondant do you know what i discover i discover that the apples are melting the fondant from underneath and there's like this milky liquid that is actually melted fondant on the surface of the apples and i'm really upset and i think it looks hideous why don't we just end the video here you gotta finish it yo i don't like reliving this this is like it's like i'm on the stand and i'm going through something that happened to me so i peeled it off at this point i'm telling myself it's gonna be better i did i am glad i saved my paint because i'm gonna paint on the inner edges of the cut because you can see that the fondant is a lighter color than the painted surface so i'm just gonna touch up the paint here and there but as i keep going not only are the apples eating away at the fondant underneath but now some of the that liquid is dripping out from the openings so on the apple pie there's also a little bit of sugar so because my pie is so large i'm going to cut some clear rock candy off the sticks and then put it in a bag and like beat it a little with a meat tenderizer and these will be my granulated sugar which given my mood felt amazing and then i'll sprinkle i sprinkled on that coarse sugar it seems to be mainly along the edges not right on the top surface of the pie so i did sprinkle it but very sparingly now my other solution to hide this like milky liquid was before i was done i'm just going gonna take a few apples here and there and put them in the opening you know just to hide some of that liquid and bulk it up it was a disaster and before i show you the final product i refuse to call it cake uh maybe we need some retail therapy so if you need that fellow cake decorators we're having a black friday sale at how to kick it dot com and with this code you get 20 off i should have taken 20 of apples off that cake i should have taken 100 of that plus if you spend 75 or more on black friday you will get access to my live stream baking class on december 14th completely free that will be our first cake therapy session we could talk through our cake problems like we actually saved the cake overnight for one day i thought okay what if i get it cold enough that was a terrible decision like when i got to the kitchen in the morning and i opened the fridge there was a puddle below the cake of how much liquid had seeped out one corner that's how much the apples had eaten apples are vicious an apple a day keeps the doctor away ah no 14 cans of apples and now i need a doctor a psychiatrist mainlyi regret the moment i made the decision to make this cake i'm really not looking forward to this this week i made a giant mcdonald's apple pie i could have chosen anything from mcdonald's and this is what i chose i'm trying to decide what would look the best i love cakes how would you do the inside i'll put a layer of apple cider but this is indians yeah fondant i had to watch it destroy itself in front of my face this cake tried to beat me and it might have won the only one that bothers me so you're saying you're gonna basically have to risk it this is my cake confession such a nice ponytail leo at least i know how to make a ponytail that's my next channel how to ponytail it it all started on i don't remember what day of the week it was monday morning i had baked some vanilla spice cakes the night before and my vanilla spice cake if you don't know is basically my ultimate vanilla batter and then i layer in some of my spice mix into the batter and bake it it didn't it wasn't all bad halfway through it was excellent we actually have to give them some other information jocelyn because here in toronto mcdonald's apple pies look a certain way when i started to look at pictures i saw versions with a lattice jocelyn and i went to a mcdonald's an american mcdonald's drive-through to purchase an apple pie which i took across the border but then who was i talking to healthy junk food said that in florida they look like ours i i'm totally confused like what state are you from where are you from where in the world are you from it's mcdonald's and tell me what your apple pie looks like there's probably you know what orahan said in turkey they serve it with ice cream around it what the heck they're getting like all this special apple pie treatment now i'm going to layer each cake into two layers so the cakes i baked are two rectangular cakes but one is larger than the other because when i worked out how to scale the pie i need it to be longer than any pen that i own so i'm i'm going to line up the cakes the bigger rectangle and then the smaller rectangle on its side one long rectangle i'm happy with the shape of my cake i'm going to take it apart lay out all the layers and with the helpers or squeeze simple syrup them while my simple syrup is soaking in i'm going to take the time to make some cinnamon buttercream because like i said apple pie makes me think of cinnamon so cinnamon buttercream it is i simply just like to stir cinnamon into my italian meringue buttercream until i like the taste of it now that's a recipe it's time to fill and stack these cakes with the cinnamon buttercream and when i do this i realize i want the cake to be a bit higher so i'm glad i saved my humps i'm gonna take those cake humps and you know trim them up remove caramelization and add them to the top just to give my like the base of my apple pie a little more height now i'm going to carve this cake to resemble the shape of a mcdonald's apple pie which is basically a rectangle but then you sort of round down the top edges you know what i'm saying and it's sort of like pinched together at the bottom i like this hand action so it's very simple carving like i said at this point i still had hopes and dreams once i'm happy i can crumb coat and chill this entire cake with my cinnamon buttercream you're gonna notice as this interview goes on i've been saying once you're happy i'm going to stop saying that at some point in this discussion because i stopped being happy since i've gone to a cake decorating therapist i actually think this is a brilliant idea cake decorators need their own therapists but when you're a cake decorator you have all these problems that are very specific to cake decorating that no one understands unless they've attempted to do this uh because it's apple pie i wanted to have apples in this cake because it's apple pie i mean it's a pretty logical thought i think so i'm just gonna use my rubber spatula to sort of scoop out the sliced apples because they're already cooked they're already cool and i will flavor them with a little more cinnamon so i just i i used like 14 cans of apple pie filling i have i have my cake i love the shape of it i have my apples they look good they're exactly what i want to see peering through the lattice and basically what i've decided to do is place a layer of these apples on top of the cake so you're not really mounding it you're just putting one layer across that top portion of cake and this will peek through our fondant later on who knew that apple pie filling could destroy fondant as well as my soul i mean i know this here's the thing i know this i know that fondant doesn't like moisture even if you cover a cake and there's a drop of water or i remember when i would deliver wedding cakes i would put like saran wrap all the way around the box if it was raining or snowing because just one little droplet of snow just starts to eat away at the fondant but because i sort of went through the process of straining the apples and i didn't really think that they were liquidy i didn't think it would have the same effect so what did they do they did everything to prove me wrong that's what they did now it's time for fondant i'm gonna try and remember i was still happy when i was rolling out this fondant so i'm going to measure my cake and then roll out my tan fondant a bit bigger than my cake and i have to carefully pick it up on a french rolling pin and unravel it over the cake now instead of what i usually do which is trim the fondant at the bottom edges i'm not going to do that because the pies don't look perfect so what i'm going to do is fold it under i don't want perfectly straight lines i don't want it to look like it came off a machine even though it probably did i don't think that there's like a mcdonald's factory with like a bunch of people just pan making pies yeah i don't i could be wrong you can correct me if i'm wrong it is time to paint this cake even though i still have to cut the fondant and create the lattice look i'm using a mixture of ivory i'll always smile for ivory ivory has never let me down unlike apples ivory is greater than apples so i'm going to use a bit of taupe which is like a grayish color just to dull it a little but you won't even notice i'm going to mix it with clear food grade alcohol and then paint it over the entire surface of my fondant so it looks like cooked pastry i've decided to paint it now one because it'll give the paint more time to dry and two because i feel like if it's cut open and i paint a lot of the liquid could sort of fall into the apples so i'm just going to paint it so i'm going to make a template for the lattice i'm drawing a template freehand which is always a painful experience for me and then i'm just going to lay it on top of my cake and use a sharp paring knife to cut out all the openings and what's great is even if you don't follow the template perfectly it doesn't matter because it's not about perfect lines it's about to get much less perfect and this is where it all goes wrong so before i show you actually i need you to subscribe to this channel i need it now more than ever because after 21 years i'm thinking i might quit cake no yeah i need you to keep me can we make this like a hotline i wish we could suddenly have everyone here like do you remember that remember when people would call in i need encouragement so as i peel off the fondant do you know what i discover i discover that the apples are melting the fondant from underneath and there's like this milky liquid that is actually melted fondant on the surface of the apples and i'm really upset and i think it looks hideous why don't we just end the video here you gotta finish it yo i don't like reliving this this is like it's like i'm on the stand and i'm going through something that happened to me so i peeled it off at this point i'm telling myself it's gonna be better i did i am glad i saved my paint because i'm gonna paint on the inner edges of the cut because you can see that the fondant is a lighter color than the painted surface so i'm just gonna touch up the paint here and there but as i keep going not only are the apples eating away at the fondant underneath but now some of the that liquid is dripping out from the openings so on the apple pie there's also a little bit of sugar so because my pie is so large i'm going to cut some clear rock candy off the sticks and then put it in a bag and like beat it a little with a meat tenderizer and these will be my granulated sugar which given my mood felt amazing and then i'll sprinkle i sprinkled on that coarse sugar it seems to be mainly along the edges not right on the top surface of the pie so i did sprinkle it but very sparingly now my other solution to hide this like milky liquid was before i was done i'm just going gonna take a few apples here and there and put them in the opening you know just to hide some of that liquid and bulk it up it was a disaster and before i show you the final product i refuse to call it cake uh maybe we need some retail therapy so if you need that fellow cake decorators we're having a black friday sale at how to kick it dot com and with this code you get 20 off i should have taken 20 of apples off that cake i should have taken 100 of that plus if you spend 75 or more on black friday you will get access to my live stream baking class on december 14th completely free that will be our first cake therapy session we could talk through our cake problems like we actually saved the cake overnight for one day i thought okay what if i get it cold enough that was a terrible decision like when i got to the kitchen in the morning and i opened the fridge there was a puddle below the cake of how much liquid had seeped out one corner that's how much the apples had eaten apples are vicious an apple a day keeps the doctor away ah no 14 cans of apples and now i need a doctor a psychiatrist mainly\n"