And Eat it Too (A Follow-up to Having Your Cake)

Who says you can't have your cake and eat it too? Here is my finale cake to Course 3 of Wilton Cake Decorating. I constructed this cake the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving, so I wanted something that would travel well since I was flying out to South Carolina the next day. I originally thought about a fall-themed cake with red, orange and gold fondant leaves, but couldn't find a leaf cutter. Instead, the night of class I opted for a simple wedding-style cake. It helped that Stephen's dad recently got married and we would celebrate that over the holiday. Without further ado, the cake:

The base cake is a home made chocolate cake layered with home made strawberry buttercream frosting. The top layer was boxed vanilla cake (lazy, I know) with home made lemon buttercream frosting. Both cakes are covered with fondant. I went a little heavy on the extracts for the buttercream so that the flavor would seep into the fondant.

The trim is silk ribbon "glued" to the fondant using piping gel.
The Lillies are made from royal icing with Wilton stems.

I'll post finale cake photos from my last class next week. Until then, have your cake.

Have Your Cake

As I head into my final two weeks of cake decorating lessons, I thought I'd show you some recent creations, from class and one that I did for my boss' birthday/ company get together.

Course 3 (Fondant) Class 1 - a pretty wrapped present
Not bad for my first try at fondant
B-day cake for Emerge and my boss. Writing is getting better. Next up: centering text.

How cute are those daisies?

Coming up I'll show you the two-tiered wedding cake I did for my course 3 finale.

Edible Arrangements

Here is the cake I made last week for the finale of my second course cake decorating lessons.
Have you ever seen something so pretty that you didn't want to eat it? Stephen hasn't; he cut into this cake the minute I brought it home.
Getting better, don't you think?

Each week we made different royal icing flowers for our basket. I won't lie, it feels pretty awesome knowing how to make fancy little flowers.

We learned the basket weave in the last class. A little practice on the boards, then onto the cake.
It takes a little skill (and a lot of luck) to make sure the frosting sticks to the cake.
Rim the edges with a rope design and voila!

Where in the World is Michele Moore-Diego?

Wow, can you believe it's already October? Where did September go? And more importantly, where did my posting go? Oh yeah, between cake decorating lessons, work kicking my butt and a semi-thriving social life, the month got away from me.

I'm through with course 1 of my cake decorating class. Below are the outcomes of 2 of the three cakes I made (the last one Stephen cut into before I could take a picture.) Here are some important lessons I learned:

1) Icing a cake is the bane of my existence. Seriously, mad props to professional decorators for the amazing work you do. It blows my mind how you ensure that no chocolate cake peeks through the frosting - I will master that one day (I hope)

2) Icing roses (what's supposed to be a very difficult task) is actually easier for me than drawing little sweet peas. How in God's green earth can I make roses but not 3 lines to form a sweet pea?

3) What goes into frosting is disgusting. I mean, it tastes delicious, but the ingredients used gross me out (and clean up afterward is even worse)

4) Cursive style vowels are just about as hard as icing a cake properly. I will eventually master this as well. Until then... at least it tastes good.

Week 2 - Cake #1 - Lettering is off-center, but so proud of what I did for the border!

Week 3 - my shell border looks great, but the swirl flowers turned out amazing - the frosting job wasn't so bad either.

Expanding Waistlines

I started my cake decorating classes tonight and I imagine that my (or Stephen's at the very least) waistline will be expanding rapidly. You see, each week I will be baking a cake, crumb coating it (you learn something new every day) and taking it to class to decorate.

Each week.

For 16 weeks.

I'm hoping this knee heals up pretty quickly so I can balance the ying and yang in my life.

Things I learned in my first class:
*Crumb coating - the layer of frosting you put over a cake to set the crumbs so you can properly frost the cake.
*Real Frosting - how to make real frosting that can be used to decorate cakes. I won't gross you out with the contents since it's the gross stuff that makes it taste SO good.
*Proper cutting - apparently there is a right way to cut a round cake. I, apparently, have not been doing things the right way.

I'll post pictures each week of my cake so you can see the (hopeful) progression from crummy artist to something at least presentable which people will pay money for.

Cupcakeista

Last week I coined the term cupcakeista for anyone who is passionate about all things cupcake. After baking the Baby Jesus Cake with Stephen's family at Christmas time, I've been giving a lot of serious consideration to exploring this passion and seeing where it leads me. I've often waxed poetic about how I would love to get into cake decoration as a side career and so I did some digging over the weekend and discovered the first thing I want to try:

The Margarita Cupcake

Thanks to Cupcake Project for posting this delicious recipe and the accompanying photo. After checking out this site and others, including I Heart Cuppycakes I've decided to start practicing my art and hopefully I'll be good enough to start testing my cupcakes and cake decorating out on my guinea pigs.*

*full disclosure: they have all volunteered with the exception of Stephen, but he never says no to anything I bake.