Flowers & Cake Design Course

I loved the Flowers in the Wilton class.  I learned roses, violets, primroses, daffodils, lilies, and more.  I worked hard each night after class to perfect them and really worked out my forearms.

When it came time to do the final class, I was ready and had built up an inventory of flowers.  I made a white cake with raspberry filling.

Then I did chocolate buttercream for the basket weave.

All together I loved this cake.  I could improve with my color coordination, but I was so proud of this cake.  I absolutely love it and think it’s great.

And, I even passed the course!

Fondant Flowers

I have been looking all over for cake decorating classes, but haven’t had success.  I finally found a basic’s course, but the teacher was awful!  She didn’t even know how to ice a cake!  There was a different instructor for Flowers & Cake Design, so I thought I’d join that class and see how she was.

I loved the instructor.  She was very understanding and helped by telling stories of experience rather than consulting the book.  I was so glad to meet her.  For one of our classes, we learned Fondant flowers and how to use cut outs.  I thought I would use this technique for my cousin’s daughter’s 1^st birthday.

The cut out flowers are very cute on their own and very easy to use when you first learn them.  I made the cake vanilla and had vanilla buttercream.  It was very simple, but very cute and I will be using the cut outs more in the future.

Strawberry Vines

After making my Grandmother’s cake, I was curious to work on my vines again.  So I whipped up another cake.  Vanilla with Strawberry inside.

I tried to add little strawberries and replicate the vines I did before.  This was a bit disappointing since it wasn’t how I wanted.  I figure it didn’t come out as well since it wasn’t made with the same love.

Fresh Strawberries

My Grandmother’s 80^th birthday was coming up and of course I wanted to give her the very best.  I made a chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream and fresh strawberries.  After learning from my Heart cake, I kept the strawberries on top rather than mixing them into the buttercream.

I decorated by first places chocolate covered strawberries around the cake.  Then I added a Happy Birthday.  The cake looked a little simple, so I added some vine work.

This has to be the hands down best cake I have made to this point.  It was so good and fresh!  Not to mention, my family had yet to see my attempt in cake decorating and they were quite impressed.

Color Striping

Just around the corner from the Gluten-Free Heart cake I made, was my mother-in-law’s birthday.  It gave me another chance to try another Gluten-Free cake.  For this one, I tried a box mix that is made by Betty Crocker.  It was White cake.

I also thought I’d try color striping since I had seen it on TV.  Before I filled my bag with the pink vanilla buttercream, I striped the bag with more pink coloring.  This made a very cool striping effect for the lines I put though the cake.  This was a very simple cake, but I loved the colors.  However I do need to keep an editing eye.

Gluten-Free Hearts

For this cake, I wanted to make something my mother-in-law could eat since she has celiac disease.  I found a recipes online for a flourless chocolate cake.  I decided to also do chocolate frosting to attempt to make it extra delicious.  If you know someone who has a gluten intolerance, you’ll know that pretty much everything that is Gluten-Free isn’t good and tastes poorly.  So I did my best.

I decorated the cake with just a little bit of pink, but mostly just white vanilla buttercream.  I kept with a heart theme and just went to town how I felt.  It wasn’t a perfect cake, but it was good to make and know how to work with Gluten-Free recipes.

Sticking with the Star Tip

Now that I was in Oregon, it was my sister-in-law's birthday and I just had to make her a cake.  Again, I only had one trick up my sleeve.  So, since she is into theater, I did the drama masks all with the star tip.

My hand hated me after this cake, but my sister-in-law seemed to like me, so I guess it all evens out!  The cake was white cake with vanilla buttercream, her favorite.



One Technique

After my 2nd Wilton class, we figured out that we were going to move to Oregon from Southern California and I was going to go...now!  It was crazy, but I had about 2 days of packing and I was on the road to be at a job the next Monday.  That Tuesday was going to be another kids birthday in my mom's class, so the night before my long 16 hour drive to Oregon, I stayed up late making him a cake.

I have no recollection as to what kind of cake it is.  All I know is that he wanted a Book of Mormon cake and I only knew one technique.  That was a lot of stars.  I did accent decorations and font with a Wilton Sparkle Gel and it was very messy.  I'm sure there are tips out there to how to better use it, but I didn't like it.

Wilton 1

I finally signed up for Wilton cake classes!  I was so excited to take them!  My first week was just explaining what would happen for the other classes.  The thing that was most important is the explanation of how to make buttercream, the consistency, and differences of brand and product used.

The following week, we were suppose to bring a cake and already have it frosted.  I think I did quite well.  Did you know you really shouldn't just grab a spoon and smother the cake, there is actually technique and a few ways to be successful with it?!  Amazing!

We learned a few different techniques and then were told to make this rainbow cake.  I was very proud of my results.

It's just a star tip over and over and over again.  However, when you take a step back and look at it, it's quite pretty.  I even did little clouds and attempted a border at the bottom of the cake.

I was so excited for this class and absolutely loved the teacher!  She was so helpful.  I couldn't wait til I went back again!

Claim Jumper Motherload Cake

If you ever get a chance, you have to get the Claim Jumper Motherload Cake.  It is 6 layers of cake filled with sooo much chocolate you can't see straight after!  It is delicious and amazing and I cannot say enough good things about it.  So, of course, I want to be able to make this at home.

For my Father's birthday, I set out to make the Motherload.  I found a recipe online and it was WAY too much.  I decided to half the cake and so I only did 3 layers, but it was still huge!  Soo much chocolaty fudge and goodness.  The frosting was very difficult to deal with.  It was very liquidy and went wherever it wanted to go.  Then, within minutes it hardened.  So, this was not a cake I was going to decorate, just a cake I was going to enjoy.

Before it dried you are suppose to place chopped walnuts on the side.  I was too slow for this.  So we had a few nice bites with it.

All in all, the cake is only as good as the enjoyment of the recipient.  It was delicious and messy and wonderful.  However, I think with this exact cake, you may want to just get it at Claim Jumper where you know they will always make it correctly.

Basketball Attempt

I was asked to do another cake for my Mother's class.  The boy loves basketball and chocolate.  So, I thought a basketball cake could be easy enough and clearly I'm good enough to fondant a cake again.

I made a chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream painted orange.  I measured the top of the cake and rolled the fondant accordingly.  I layed the fondant on the cake and *facepalm*.  I measured for the top of the cake, the 9" not enough to cover the entire cake!  I didn't have enough for the rest so thi was now a semi-fondant covered cake.

I thought I could add texture now that the fondant was on the cake and it wasn't working well.  So I gave up and focused on the lines and writing the boys name.  I was pretty proud of it, even thought it wasn't perfection.  It was still pretty okay.

Then, I showed everyone my cake and my mom said something like, "Is this wet?"  She left a nice streak on the cake.  I fixed it, but it made it just a little more less perfect.

All in all, I can't be too upset with myself because I don't know what I'm doing, I'll I know is the next one has got to get better!

Murder Mystery Cake

My friend invited us to a Murder Mystery dinner and asked if I make dessert.  Of course, I had to make a cake!  The concept was the story line of the night, which we had already gotten a preview of.  We need that the bride had been killed just before the wedding and we were there to figure out who did it.

I thought I'd go pretty litteral and have a dead bride on the cake with blood.  For the cake itself, I made the most delicious red velvet and cream cheese frosting.  It was to die for! (No pun intended)

For the dead bride, I was going to try and use modeling chocolate, but it was easier for me to just buy a doll and stick her in the cake.  So that's what I did.

Note, that I have no idea how to layer a cake, so I just kept stacking and hoped the doll would keep it together.  She did, but she also moved the layers to make it look even more like a dress.

What I ended up with is a cake that they do for Cake Decorating with Wilton, that I have never taken.  Very similiar in how it turned out.

The blood is a mixture of food coloring and Karo syrup.  For chunky blood, you use peanut butter and it looks quite real!

The cake was so good and everyone loved it, even though it wasn't that unique.