Flowers and Ribbon

Today was our second class of course 4. We were to use flowers and ribbon on our cake. Have to admit I went unprepared so I only brought the ribbon and no flowers. Luckily, I was the first to finish up my piping and the ribbons so I was able to go out into the store and purchase some flowers that matched my ribbon. I was very happy with it because I got very positive compliments on the way out of the store.

I stuck the flowers directly into the cake. I am pretty sure that is not the right method, I believe you are suppose to stick them into either a piece of fondant or foam. I don't think many brides would want to eat cake that's been in contact with metal. The instructor said it was fine but it seems a bit weird to me.

I just realized I made two brown and pink cakes in a row! I need to change up the colors for next time.

Pink and Brown

I bought a book a long time ago that had a cake on the cover that I loved. I made a mini version of it. It's white with pink and brown hearts, circles, stripes and flowers. The flowers were my favorite part. It's just a bunch of ruffled circles attached together at the center. It looks a bit like a rose. Here are the pictures.

A close up of the flowers.

I made it smaller than my last cake. You can see from this picture that it is about the height of a can of soda.

Just for Fun!

I found a new pan set that I had to try out right away. Here are some pictures:

I really wanted to practice the piping to create these swags. I think it looks much better this time!

I also wanted to try out this embroidery effect. It's so easy to do, you just draw what you want with royal icing and pull in the edges with a brush. So simple and pretty.

This last picture gives you an idea of how tiny it is. It was hard to do all that string work with a #1 tip but it was great practice! I have to say that I'm not a fan of the suspended string work. It is very difficult to do and hurts your wrist after a little while! I think I'll need a lot more practice with it.

First Wedding Cake

Just finished up my first class in the 4th course. We made a wedding cake in white. The string work looks amazing against the white fondant.

When working with royal icing make sure it's not breaking. If it is, then it is too dry and you need to add more piping gel or water to the mix. I was struggling and the strings kept breaking and didn't realize my mix was not right. I used someone else's and it was much easier to work with.

Royal Icing Mix:

10 tbs water

3 tps meringue powder

2 tbs of piping gel

The string work was tricky to do but it was much easier when I got a batch of icing that was softer.

I didn't want to make a full size cake so I made a mini-wedding cake instead. The top layer is a 4 inch cake, the middle is 6 inches and the bottom layer is an 8 inch cake.

Cupcakes

I made some cupcakes for my class. The frosting was strawberry flavored. I made it by just replacing the regular cream cheese with strawberry cream cheese. It was very easy to make and tasted good. I am loving the silver wrappers. Cheap and easy to find at Walmart.

Last Wilton Class Cake

I tried a new technique this time when draping the fondant. I spread the fondant out on the Wilton mat using Crisco only. I then took the whole mat with the fondant and put it over my cake. There was enough Crisco on the mat to let me peel it off like a sticker and the fondant stayed in place on the cake. The only problem was that I made it a bit too thin and it ripped along the bottom. I was so upset about it but then thought about how to cover it up. I ended up cutting a long piece of fondant and placed it along the bottom so it looked like a ribbon. I liked the end result.

The top bow was something I wasn't crazy about in the beginning. Once I finished making it I loved it! It looks so nice and finishes the cake in a special way.

I used different sized circle cut-outs to cut circles out of different colored fondant and placed them all over the cake. This cake looks like a little gift wrapped hat box.

Chocolate Cake

I recently got my first cake order. It was from my aunt who wanted a birthday cake for her son. She said she wanted it to be a chocolate cake and 10 inches round. I have never made chocolate frosting so it was interesting to figure out how to make it. I followed my usually recipe but added some new ingredients. Nutela was one of the ingredients I used. They loved the cake. I wasn't there to taste it but I will have to make another one so I can have a taste.

The chocolate buttercream was so nice to frost with. It was very smooth and easy to spread. It developed a waxy texture which made the spatula glide over it when smoothing. I added some roses to the cake. I am not great at making roses with frosting but they stood nicely. The icing was a bit thick and hurt my hand so I might try adding more butter next time.

Mini-Cakes

I've got to say that mini-cakes are my favorite to make. They take much less time to make and they are SO CUTE! I decorated them with pink petunia flowers. I got a mold online to make the petunias. They were so easy to make and look so pretty. I also added some pink pearl dust to make them even prettier.

Tip: Do not use commercial buttercream out of those little tubs for cake decorating! It was impossible to work and it was so runny it made it difficult to decorate. I thought it would be ok because it was only going under the fondant but that made it difficult to cover it. The fondant did not want to stick. I learned my lesson!

Basket Cake

This basket cake was one of my most recent cakes. The weaving was very tricky. I somehow went from making my weaving nice and tight to gapped and crooked! But, once I finished it up I couldn't really see all the flaws in it.

These roses were my very first attempt at making a fondant rose by hand. I made the petals one by one out of little balls of fondant. It took a LONG time. Shortly after I purchased a rose petal cutter which I am currently using to make some roses. I am very excited about learning how to make realistic looking roses.

Wilton Castle Cake

This was my favorite cake until recently. I covered it with stars and made a shell border for it. I didn't have enough time to finish it in cake class but I finished it up at home by adding some flowers. The little flowers added so much to it! It was also my first attempt at making fresh buttercream. It was so delicious! The bucket that Wilton sells tastes awful. People usually picked it off the cake. My in-laws were the first to taste it and they loved it. My family ate the rest of it!

Second Cake: Wilton Roses

This is my second cake. The assignment was to make the rose and transfer it onto the cake. I thought it was hard to make the rose but it was so much harder to transfer it onto the cake. Sometimes it looked amazing on the nail and as soon as I took the scissors to the base, it fell apart. I think this cake looks pretty good...from a distance. I was very happy with my shells!

First Cake

This buttercream cake was the first cake I made on my own. I was so proud of it! It took me forever to learn how to frost it and I kept getting crumbs in it the whole time. Out of the whole cake making experience, I've got to say that frosting a cake is my least favorite.

I used strawberries to decorate it. I like the symmetrical look.

Strawberries were the wrong way to go though because the liquid from inside it went all over the place and even dripped down the sides!

Look at how pretty it looks when it was cut. I'm sad to say that I haven't done this nice of a job getting the frosting all evenly distributed since.

I always wondered how people got their cakes to look so smooth. I finally learned that the trick is to put hot water on your spatula and the heat smoothes out the buttercream.