I used to be terrible at saying no to cake orders.

Someone would message me with a cake picture and a date, and before I had even checked whether I was free, I would be thinking, Okay, how can I make this happen?

Tomorrow?

I'll manage.

Something I've never made before?

I'll figure it out.

A cake that clearly needs much more time than I have?

I'll somehow squeeze it in.

I think a part of me was just scared of losing an order.

When you're running a small home bakery, you don't have hundreds of orders coming in. So when someone chooses you, you really want to make it work.

But there have been times when saying yes has meant spending the entire day stressed.

Running to get an ingredient.

Reworking a design.

Trying to finish something faster than I normally would.

And then cleaning the entire kitchen when I'm already exhausted.

The funny thing is, the customer doesn't see any of that.

They just see the cake.

And that's fair. They shouldn't have to.

But I eventually realised that if I know I don't have enough time to do something properly, saying yes isn't really helping anyone.

So now, before accepting a custom order, I actually stop and think.

Do I have the time?

Can I get the ingredients?

Have I made something like this before?

Is the budget realistic for the amount of work involved?

And sometimes the answer is simply no.

There are also times when someone sends me a beautiful Instagram cake and asks me to make exactly the same thing. I have learnt not to promise that. I can take the idea and create something similar, but I don't want to pretend that every cake can be copied exactly.

I also don't want to take an order just because I feel awkward saying no.

That has taken some practice.

Even now, I sometimes look at an enquiry and think, I could probably make it work.

But “probably” isn't good enough when someone's birthday cake is sitting on your kitchen counter.

I'd rather say no than rush through something and know I could have done a better job.

So I've stopped thinking that every enquiry needs to become an order.

Sometimes, the best thing I can tell a customer is, “I don't think I can do this properly in the time you have.”

It doesn't mean I don't want their business.

It means I care about what leaves my kitchen.

And honestly, learning to say no has probably made me a much better baker.