The Competitive Cake Artist with Jewel Burgess

The Forrager Podcast for Cottage Food Businesses

Jewel Burgess lives in Rancho Cordova, CA and sells realistic custom-sculpted cakes with her cottage food business, Cake Jewel.

She basically makes realistic works of art, using cake as her medium, often turning everyday objects into a cake.

You may have seen Jewel’s cakes on TV. She has already been on three Food Network competitions (Halloween Wars twice), and she will be on a fourth competition that hasn’t aired yet.

But when she’s not making cakes thousands viewers, she is making them for customers.

In this episode, we talk about the evolution of her business over the past 9 years, how she gained skills after starting with zero knowledge of cake making, why she’s chosen to get super niched with her side business, and what she’s learned from the stress of multiple appearances on national television.

What You’ll Learn

• How to get started learning to make cake art
• How Jewel got on her first Food Network competition despite having limited experience
• A behind-the-scenes look at what a TV baking competition is really like
• Why you should charge based on the customer experience, not just the item
• How to weed out the wrong customers so they don’t waste your time
• How Jewel pushes the boundaries of custom-decorated cakes
• How to get to the point where you can specialize in a hyper-niched, high-end product

Resources

Cake Jewel website (Facebook | Instagram | TikTok)

Learn cake art:

• Sugar Geek Show, by Liz Marek
  • Liz appeared as a guest on podcast episodes 31 & 32
• Sideserf Cake Studio, by Natalie Sideserf
• Cakes by Timbo, by Timbo Sullivan

Jewel’s Food Network appearances:

• Halloween Wars: Hayride of Horror (2017)
• Cakealikes, Season 1 (2021)
• Halloween Wars, Season 11 (2021)

California Cottage Food Law

Get full show notes and transcript here: https://forrager.com/podcast/69