Check out my cake!!

So last night course one of my Wilton Cake Decorating class series came to a conclusion. I must admit, I am kinda sad it's over. As crazy as it was to try to bake and frost a cake every Monday night then go to class with said cake every Tuesday night, I will definitely miss it next week. I REALLY learned a lot, and not just about decorating! It's definitely not a baking class but Linda, our instructor at the Michael's in Des Peres, taught us all kinds of tricks to making your cake bake nicely so you have a good "base" for your decorations. I think I touched on these in an earlier post but check these bad boys out...Wilton Bake Even Strips claim to help your cake bake nice and level and evenly throughout. I haven't bought them yet but Linda says she always uses them and her cakes all turn out great! Instead, I use the Wilton Cake Leveler to knock the hump off my cakes. Works like a charm...wastes a little bit of cake. Wait, take that back, Tom eats the cake I shave off the top so I guess its not really wasted. Lucky boy. :)

So, last night we got the chance to decorate a cake any way we wanted using any of the techniques we learned over the past several weeks. I am SUPER proud of how my cake turned out...check it out!!!

Here is the famous "Wilton Rose!" We learned a new step for the rose each night of the class so it took us 3 weeks to learn how to do the whole thing. They are tricky!!!!! Also notice the fancy leaves and vines.

For the border I used my 2D tip to make large, white drop flowers and then sporadically put pink spiral flowers on top using tip 16, I believe. Had some extra green from the leaves and vines so I gave them contrasting centers.

One more shot from above...

It's a shame course two isn't being offered until November but that will give me a chance to practice everything I have learned so far! Don't worry, hubby, the cakes won't stop here! And Michael's will have to find someone else to terrorize the cake decorating aisle for a few weeks...maybe. ;)

Anyone have any ideas for a cake for me to decorate? I love a challenge!

Cake decorating!!

Have I mentioned lately that I love cake decorating? Cause I do. Even with all the headaches my first cake gave me (have you heard me talking about "ugly cake"...yep, that's the one) the second one is turning out great and I'm really enjoying it.

This week was the first time we got to get hands-on with cakes and icing. I was so excited! All last week and this weekend were busy but I was thinking about all the possibilities for my cake. Devil's food, chocolate fudge, strawberry, yellow, white, or funfetti cake? I had picked them all up at Schnucks on Sunday cause they were only $1 so I had lots to choose from. I decided to go with two 9" round pans and cherry preserves for filling (remember she showed us how to do filling with a cup of pudding last class). Chocolate fudge for the cake. Chocolate icing...I thought I was all set. Then I got to Monday night and the actual baking/making of icing.

Ah, "ugly cake." You looked so great straight out of the cake pan...and then I tried to add the filling and things started to fall apart. Then I tried icing you...that just made it worse. Next thing I knew, one quadrant of the top of the cake had cracked off and was sliding across the cherry preserves filling and onto the cake board. Cherry filling was oozing out everywhere, even after I had put icing all around. I decided that slapping more icing on the cake would fix it. It did not. In fact, it made it even worse! (if that was possible) Now the top of the cake looks like a butt. Yes, you heard me right, it looks like a butt.

Poor Tom had to deal with me during this "crisis" of sorts. I was not exactly a happy camper. Granted this was all happening the night before class so I was in a bit of a time crunch and really wanted to have a nice first cake to decorate. I have never had this much trouble with a cake in my life...talk about frustration. Take a look for yourself...

The view from above...doesn't look too bad from up here.......

Then you get to see the side view. See the butt cheeks? And the filling oozing out everywhere? I bet you can tell where I tried to "glue" the cake back together with globs of icing too. *sigh*

Tom ensured me that "ugly cake" would still taste delicious but I didn't care. What good was a delicious cake when no one at decorating class was going to eat it...they were just going to see what a scary cake I had made and snicker. I was secretly praying that I was not the only one having a Monday night cake nightmare. Not nice, I know, and not that I would wish this on anyone, I just wanted some company to joke with on Tuesday really. Frankly, I was out of time cause it was too late to bake another cake that night.

Tuesday rolled around and I could NOT STOP THINKING ABOUT UGLY CAKE! I had to do something about it. I could NOT bring that cake to class. Lucky for me, I remembered that we had two options this week for class.

Option 1: Bring a round cake pre-iced and ready to decorate.

Option 2: Bring a character cake (made from any shaped pan) without icing to decorate.

I decided I could pull off option 2 if I could just get a cake pan and some eggs (I was now out of those...) So after work I ran to the store, got a teddy bear pan, got some eggs, and ran home to whip up another cake. This one looked MUCH better....mostly cause I didn't have to ice it. One leg did split open when it released from the pan but I figured I'd get Linda to help me repair that rather than attempt it on my own....we saw what happened to the last cake I tried to fix.

"Pretty cake," as I now call it, worked out great! Linda showed me how to fill in the cracked leg so no one would be able to tell and I was able to finish the main frosting color during class last night. I used a tri-tip star pattern. Take a peek!

"Pretty cake" in all it's current glory....more colors to come tonight!

So tonight I get to finish this bad boy up...and then try not to eat it. We'll just work on boosting "ugly cake's" moral tonight by telling it how good it tastes since I haven't been so nice the past two days...and my does it taste good! My husband is a lucky man...at least until the end of the month. ;)

Cake Decorating!!

Well folks, last night was my first cake decorating class. I must admit, I have mixed feelings. For the most part, I am so excited about it all!! Looking through the Course 1 book and seeing what all I can do, plus all the little tricks our instructor, Linda, already taught us has me itching to go bake a cake right now! However, I did have a few disappointments. First, we didn't get to really do anything the first night except watch...and realize that I need to start collecting Michael's coupons. We just need to buy a bunch more stuff than I was banking on. It will all be great to have but I'm really starting to wonder where I'm gonna store all these nifty tools. Hmmm. Third, and this one is totally my own fault, I got "courses" and "classes" confused when looking into signing up. Turns out I need to sign up for 3 or 4 different 4 week courses to learn everything I thought I would be learning just in September. Each "course" has 4 "classes" that cover all the topics listed for that course....is that clear as mud to you too? I'm hoping I wasn't alone on this one.

But I promise not to be "Debbie Downer" this whole post (whom whom) cause mainly I'm just super excited about it all! So let's see what I can tell you about. First, I'm taking official Wilton Method Cake Decorating Classes at Michael's. Our class is HUGE! Apparently there were only 8 of us signed up (still a large class according to our instructor) but then 8 more signed up Sunday and Monday and we were suddenly up to 16. One didn't show up, three got up and left about 45 minutes into the class (I don't know if they got overwhelmed or were just mad there wasn't room for them at the table...who knows) so now we're down to an even dozen. Hopefully next week when we're actually decorating there will be enough room.

So, this week, we learned some tips and tricks to baking a nice, iceable (did I just make up a word?) cake. Such tips include things like allowing the cake to cool completely before trying to ice (duh) AND flipping the cake over and icing the bottom! Who knew?! This drastically reduces the amount of crumbs you get in the icing...a problem I ALWAYS have. Next, she showed us all kinds of tools like this nifty cake leveler which you can use to level out a lumpy cake top (which remember, is actually going to be the bottom!) OR it can split your cake in half, allowing you to add filling!!!

Speaking of cake filling, Linda used a single serve pudding cup (chocolate...yumm) to fill her 8" round, 3" deep yellow cake last night. That's one very easy option but you can also use icing of any flavor or fruit preserves (or several pudding cups...heehee!) to fill your tasty treat. I have my eye on some raspberry preserves for my first cake next week...oh buddy!

And how do they get the icing so smooth?! Hint: you don't have to use fondant to get a nice smooth look to your icing. Spread your buttercream icing over the cake and wait for it to be dry to the touch, you don't want it tacky! Then lay a sheet of wax paper over the cake and use a spatula to help smooth it. I'll try to take pictures when I do it for the first time...I know my mouth was hanging wide open when she did this. Why didn't I think of that?! Oh and if you're not a fan of typical buttercream icing, did you know you can add vanilla or almond extract to change the flavor? I sure didn't. Just make sure you use clear extracts so your icing doesn't end up looking kind of funky from using dark extracts. Wilton makes some terrific clear extracts you can try. Something else about icing...we can either make our own from scratch using the Wilton recipe (which would make me feel kind of guilty giving out on the blog...ah morals!) or you can buy Wilton premade icing for quick and easy icing you know you can trust to give you a perfect finish.

Wow I really have a lot to tell you about icing...I guess that makes sense since that's what I'll be using to do all the decorating! :) Decorating takes different consistencies of icing for different tasks. There are three consistencies to work with: stiff icing is for making roses or other flowers or decorations that have to stand up off the cake on their own; medium icing is for stars, piping, borders, and flowers with petals that lie flat on the cake; thin icing is used for icing the cake, writing, vines, and leaves. Whew...had to consult my official Wilton book to make sure I got all that right. Guess I have some studying to do this weekend!

Next week we get to start decorating...that is, if I don't make a practice cake this weekend! Stay tuned to hear more about it as I destroy, er, decorate round cakes, cupcakes, character cakes, and more!! Maybe if you're lucky (and you work or live with me) you'll get to benefit from some of my creations...we'll see how it goes.

In the meantime....I'll be searching through the grocery ads for sales on cake mixes cause I think I'm gonna need quite a few over the next few weeks. Good for my hubby and his sweet tooth, bad for me getting on the bathroom scale. Oh well. :)