Flowers

Today I attended the third class of the Wilton Basic Decorating course. The class mainly focused on flowers today. We were to bring six un-iced cupcakes to class. Braxton picked chocolate. Shocker!!


During class, we learned how to make drop flowers, swirling drop flowers, rosettes, pompom flowers, leaves, and shells. It was also interesting to see how important having the right icing consistency is. My consistency today was too dry and not creamy enough. I think I may have over mixed it as well, which did not help. This made for a very frustrating afternoon for me. While my icing still "worked", it was not the stunning creamy icing of my perfectionist dreams. I spent the class huffing and puffing and wishing I could remake the icing. There will be practicing at home this week with a better mixed icing.

The last thing we learned were these shaggy mums. They were my favorite flower of the class and I think I will be incorporating these into my end of the class "Finale Cake."

They taste even better than they look. I am looking forward to my next class and making sure my icing is creamy perfection. For now, these will have to do.

Dimensional Decorating

Today's decorating class was about dimensional decorating. For this class we were supposed to make a double batch of the Class Buttercream Icing in a stiff consistency. You can tell it is stiff by the way the spatula does not fall to the side as I jiggle the cup.
We were also told to bake a single layer of a cake. I had a little sticking in my pan, so it crumbed quite a bit. It is a yellow cake.

This is what I carried into class today, along with my purse. I felt like I was moving into Michael's. People always look at you funny when you carry that much INTO the store.

We torted our cakes and filled them with filling. My filling is blueberry, Eric's suggestion. After filling, we frosted the cake. We copied a pattern given to us by Wilton using white piping gel and then transferred our image to the top of the cake. We then practiced our dimensional decorating with a round tip. We then decorated using the new theory.

My class was running a bit behind so I only had 10 minutes to decorate my cake. I feel pretty good about it, all things considered. I would have liked to see what I could do with a bit more time. What do you think?

Next week, CUPCAKES!

Star tip

Today I am starting the next stage of my life. My half-baked dream is to open a bakery. Slowly but surely, I am going to begin taking steps towards that goal.

Last week I signed up for a cake decorating class at Michael's craft store. The class is put on by Wilton and is called "Decorating Basics." For the class we needed a kit, I decided to purchase the monster kit which includes all I will need for the three decorating classes that they offer.

Along with this kit we were also asked to bring six plain cookies to decorate.

I walked into Michael's with my arms loaded down and my hopes high. My instructors name is Emily. She happens to be the sister-in-law of a high school classmate. She is very nice and helpful. She showed us how to prepare cake pans, how to use Bake-Even Strips for perfectly level cakes, explained how to make Class Buttercream Icing and how to achieve different consistencies of icing.

We then moved into Featherweight bags. We were shown how to prep an icing bag for decorating, how to hold the bag and how to fill and ice a cake. Then, practical application was used with a star tip. We began by using our practice boards and piping icing to make a single star, then a star border and finally a star fill in. We were asked to take out the cookies we brought and use the method to ice our cookies.

One cookie didn't make it until the camera was available.

You can see the detail of the star tip below.

The first class was very basic, like my blog post. My writing may not evoke anything from you, but the pictures just might.

Next week we are to bring a cake and all sorts of filling and decorating supplies. I can't wait to see what we create next!