Happy Holidays!

For a Holiday cake, I decided to do chocolate with mint filling.  For the filling, I chopped up Andes mints and it was so delicious!

For decor, I tried a rope border that was new for me.  The rope work came out much better then my dots and even my shell border on the bottom.

I did better with the writing, but I should have taken the time to mix in a little piping gel to make it smooth.

For the top, I made cake pops for the first time!  I have an autographed book by Bakerella that my mother got me.  The pops are actually much harder than I expected them to be.  You have to be very fast when you work with the candy coating.

I just loved the cake pops once the hard work was over.  They were made out of red velvet and they were so cute!

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.



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!

Heart Cake

This was for a birthday cake for one of my favorite cousins.  To begin, I decided to make sponge cake.  I did one little heart shape of that and...fail.

I got over that pretty quickly.  So, I moved on to just a white cake in a heart shape.  That was much more successful.  For the frosting, I had vanilla buttercream and I mixed in strawberries.  I think it's better to have strawberries on top, though.  This made the consistency very thin and watery.

I then colored fondant and covered the cake in pink fondant.  I was impressed with how easy this was!  However, it was only one layer of cake, so I'm sure this isn't the reaction every time.  Then, I cut out little free hand hearts and starts with more fondant.

It looked super cute and I added her name, Sienna.  Amazing.  But, of course, I couldn't stop so I kept going!  I added food color to some of the hearts to add variety (lesson learned:  do not put food color on top like that, it stays like that and gets EVERYWHERE!).  I also did little stars or something with royal icing.

All-in-all, best cake yet!  It tasted great, however, there are still a lot of things I am learning and trying to figure out.