Sunday, August 30, 2009

My Final Cake

Last week I finished my cake decorating class, at least the Wilton Level 1 class. I got a certificate and everything to prove I've mastered beginner's cake decorating. Anyway, I never did get a truly impressive rose; I'll have to keep trying. I thought the last class was going to be my day, but I was sick and just did not have the arm strength. Even without a rose, I think I finished the class with a bang with a pretty impressive cake. It was a good thing I stuck it out until the last class so I could learn sweet peas and leaves! I even did some Level 2 work and experimented with royal icing, making my star flowers ahead of time. So, I present to you my final project so to speak:



Just to make the mouths of those of you far away water, it was a french vanilla cake with orange creamsicle icing. Marcus wanted nothing to do with it, but I assure you my co-workers devoured it!

Friday, August 14, 2009

Cakes!!

Yeah yeah yeah, it's been months since I've posted anything; I know, I know; so sue me!

Anyway, a few weeks ago one of my girlfriends mentioned that she wanted to take a cake decorating class to learn how to do fondant. It turns out you can take classes on such things at JoAnns, but we had to start with the intro class. Before you get to the good stuff I would like to explain that I spend several hours mixing buttercream icing so sweet it will rot your teeth on contact. It apparently take practice to make edible buttercream icing in the proper consistencies for cake decorating. There was some good that came out of all the experimenting though, I developed a scrumptious chocolate buttercream icing. I will admit up front that I used a boxed cake mix for my first cake (it was more about the decorating than the cake itself). However, I'm pleased to say that after being tasted by Marcus and several co-workers I've been assured that my cake is not pretty but also tasty! The end result was a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream filling and vanilla and peppermint buttercream icing. One final note before ending the suspense and showing you the final product: I did not come up with the design, it was what the whole class did from the book. Now feast your eyes on this:


I will also say that I know it looks green in the photo, but it's actually a more seafoam/teal green/blue color. Plus, the picture came from my phone so it isn't the greatest. I may replace with a real picture later. It was supposed to be sky blue but the icing I wanted to frost with wasn't pure white so when I added blue food coloring to yellow-tinted icing I got a little, but very pretty, surprise!