With the popularity of cooking books and cooking TV shows, it appears that our culture's love affair with eating is not even close to being done. And our love affair with the beautiful, exquisite-looking dessert, well, that appears to be a mainstay. As cooking shows and cooking books continue to flood the airwaves and bookshelves, more and more people are becoming interested in creating homespun desserts that are elegant and unforgettable. It is no wonder, then, that so many new culinary arts schools are also popping up and churning out waves of talented new chefs. If you are one of these talented young chefs making their way through culinary arts school, what can you expect upon graduation? That is, what can you do with a degree in cake decorating?

The Short Answer is Yes

The short answer is that you can do a lot with a degree in cake decorating. Cake decorating is one of those fields that will be around no matter what the economy looks like at the moment or what the latest food trend appears to be, because cakes are here to say, are they not? That is not to say that it will be easy to find immediate financial or professional success as a young pastry chef and cake decorator. It is a niche industry, and thus it can often feel hard to make your way to the inside of the industry. But know that there are many possibilities for someone who has received formal training in cake decorating. If you are considering getting formal training in the pastry and the sugar arts, but you are not sure about post-program career options, here is a brief overview of just some of the possibilities.

1) You can get a job at a bakery. This is perhaps the most obvious choice, but many cake decorators enter the field thinking that they have to set up and run their own business. Many professional cake decorators overlook the fact that they can get a secure career by working at the neighborhood bakery. There are, in fact, many different types of work environments as a professional cake decorator. You can find yourself working at the quaint neighborhood corner bakery. Or perhaps you can get a job as a professional cake decorator in the bakery department of the local supermarket. You can also find a position as a professional cake decorator in a large and fast-paced bakery outlet, or at a small local co-op. There are almost as many variations of this position as there are types of cakes themselves.

2) You start your own cake decorating business. The flipside to working at a bakery is to open your own bakery or your own cake decorating business. There are many benefits to this option, of course, including most of all the fact that you can act as your own boss. You can also set your own hours, which is important in the often timeline-oriented world of baking and cake decoration.

3) You can work as a freelance artisan baker and cake decorator. This is probably the most flexible of all the options, and also the option that offers you the most time to choose your projects with care and get the kind of results you like. If you are very serious about treating cake decorating as a craft and as an art, then you may want to consider working on a freelance basis with bakeries, individual clients or catering companies. You can set up your own small freelance enterprise by advertising at trade shows, putting out an announcement to your local paper and networking with clients.