Edible Images Part 1

This cake almost broke my spirit. A girl I went to school with contacted me for a cake and cupcakes. She asked if I ever worked with edible images and provided me with 24 edible images for cupcakes and one for a 9 X 13 cake. I never worked with edible images, but I figured it couldn't be that hard. The directions seemed easy enough: "Peel image from plastic backing and apply to cake."

Three hours later, I ended up with a headache, and a torn image. I did everything I could to free the image from the plastic backing. I Googled for help. I even watched YouTube videos. It looked so easy, yet my image was not coming off the backing. I again placed it in the freezer and it finally came free. Well most it! (The logo tore, of course!) All I had to do was apply it to the cake. Easy, right? Nope! I dampened the icing (that had since dried while I was fighting the image) and placed it on top. I smoothed the sides and guess what, it wouldn't stick! I peeled it back off and applied a bit more water and still nothing—well it did start to bleed.

At this point, I was ready to throw the cake in the garbage and start again. It was near midnight, though, and I was exhausted. Plus I still had to decorate two dozen cupcakes with more edible images. (I'll recant this story in another post later this week.) So I placed the image down as best I could and decorated around it. I hated this cake and it still makes me sick to look at it. The moral of the story: Never again will I use an edible cake image. (The customer loved it and was not mad at all, but it still broke my spirit a little bit.)