Learning from Wilton

Through the month of August I took a Wilton cake decorating class on base.  I figured I loved to bake - and I love being creative with my cards and scrapbooking... so why not?

What I discovered was that scrapbooking and card making may be creative, but not necessarily artistic.  My artistic talent is little to nonexistent. 

We started learning what each of the icing tips did, and what shapes they made.  I decorated some sugar cookies, but they were so pathetic I didn't even think to take pictures.  The cookies looked better without icing!  The next class we were told to bring a cake, and she would show us how to layer it, fill it, and ice it.  If their was time we would learn "3 dimensional icing"

So the cake turned out well, filling it and layering it was easy... but covering it was a pain, and my 3D artwork on top inspired this coversation:

Kristen: "Check out the cake I finished in class today"
Travis:  "Looks great"
Kristen: "Do you know what that is on top?"
Travis: "uhhhhhh....."
Kristen: "Take a guess, I know it sucks - what is it?"
Travis: "It looks like the mushroom from Super Mario??"
Kristen: *laughs* "It's suppose to be a cupcake, but that is awesome!"

...we referred to it as the mushroom until the cake was gone.  I personally thought it looked like spaghetti worms in a cup, so the mushrooms from super mario was definitely a step up!

It was a tasty cake though!  Don't judge a book by it's cover!  Chocolate fudge two layer 8" cake.  Filled with Almond mousse, and covered in chocolate icing.

The next class we were learning how to make icing flowers, and decorate cupcakes.  I improved ten-fold over the 3 dimensional icing lesson that I failed so miserably.

First a large spiral of white icing.  (let it be noted that this is where Travis and I later determined that I should have stopped.)

Then I piped on some leaves - I think the leaves turned out fairly well actually!

And then.... I practiced the flowers on top of the cupcakes.  Destroying them, and making them look ridiculous!

When it was all said and done though, I got the practice I needed, and they still tasted fine.  Even if they did look like a cross between a bad 80's wedding and something from Cakewrecks.com!

Vanilla bean cupcakes filled with strawberry preserves, topped with an almond flavoured icing.

For the last class we brought a cake and were allowed to decorate it in any way that we wanted, utilizing the lessons we had learned from our instructor.

I'm actually fairly proud of this cake.  The icing was completely smooth until I had to drive home with it in the passenger seat.  Seriously, how do professionals do that???  It was a dense vanilla bean 4 layer cake with kahlua cream filling.  It was iced with chocolate icing, and the polka dots are flavoured vanilla, chocolate, and kahlua.  I avoided drawing any pictures and stuck to basic shapes - a move that I think made me look like I was more talented that I actually am.

It was a fun class, and I may take level two in October... we'll see!  (I passed level one and they told me I could - I have a certificate to prove it!)