Wilton Course 3 - Class 4

I'm finally finished! With this course, at least. I've both dreaded this one and enjoyed it. Each class has been sort of painful though...I guess I wasn't always in the mood. Especially with this last one. I, as usual, waited until the last minute to actually start making the flowers. I had intentions of making them on Monday (Memorial Day) but ended up with what I think was a 24-hour bug. I felt horrible all day long. So I had Tuesday after work to bake all of the cakes AND make 20-25 fondant roses. Yeah...right. Fortunately, I have a very helpful husband who did help as much as possible. In the end, I've enjoyed the classes. Getting ready for them seemed to be the hard part.

For class I always just use boxed cake mix - it's easier and a lot less expensive when you get them on sale. I still have plenty of the boxed fondant, so I haven't attempted that either. The bottom layer was a plain yellow (Jason's favorite) and the top is chocolate (my favorite!).

I had a really hard time with the roses. I figured out what several of my problems were, but the result was that the petals kept cracking. First, the fondant had dried out and I forgot that you could microwave it. We were also rolling the fondant too thick to begin with. I made a few more yesterday before class with a fresh bag of fondant and they were a lot easier to work with!

I'm really caked out right now. I used three cake mixes so I had an 8" round and a dozen cupcakes left over. Those have made it to the freezer...I'm going to attempt cake truffles. But not for a while! My next adventure will be the 250 mini cheesecakes I have to make for my mom's wedding. What really scares me is that I'm not nervous about this. I should be, right?

Wilton Course 3 - Cake 1

I was really excited to take course 3 - FONDANT!! Now, the first and only time I worked with fondant turned out to be a disaster. I was still in High School and we bought the Wilton Yearbook with this cute pink cake on the front in fondant. So my mom and I decided to try it out, even though we had no idea what it actually was! After kneading the fondant to color it we ended up with a streaky pink and white lump. Then we tried to roll it out and it kept tearing and falling apart, so it ended up in the garbage and we went with the trusty old butter-cream frosting.

Finally, after about 12 years, I decided to tackle the fondant again. I will say that I was really lazy this week and did box cake mixes. I do have a good excuse - I fell down. HARD. I was helping my mom move plants and managed to trip and land right on a wooden bench. I have a large palm-size bruise on my right side, directly under my ribcage. Nice. So with the pain, I dug out some boxed mixes and went to town. Oh, and to top it off I had two different one - so the bottom layer is a nice fluffy white cake and the top is a cute yellow and chocolate marble cake. Eh, people will eat it anyway!

I have also decided that I will probably never frost a cake in butter-cream again! I've been having issues with my last few batches (apparently you have to use the paddle attachment!) and they seem to have lumps in them. So now I'm all about the fondant. For smaller cakes, of course. I'm a little timid with the bigger ones for now. I'm also pretty thrilled about no more freaking stars to fill things in! Woohoo!

I've become my mother

Growing up, my mom decorated cakes. It wasn't a business...just a hobby and a way to raise extra money. She did them for all of our birthdays and did the same for most of our friends and family. My sister and I always helped, but never really took classes.
My first attempt was last year - a coworker found out she was having a baby and asked me to do her shower cake. I don't have pics for a good reason. I thought it was a disaster! Everyone else thought it looked ok, but had my mom not been there to bail me out...I think a trip to Kroger would have been in order!! After that, I decided lessons were a must.

My first Wilton class involved three cakes. Not good for the waistline...well not mine, but Jason sure liked it! All of my cakes for class have been boxes. There are just too many chances to take with a cake from scratch, plus since I was making almost one each week...I needed something easy!
The first cake was pretty simple - frost and decorate with the "star" tip. The baby (said reason for the cake classes) had his first frosting taste! The first few licks were not so great, but once he figured out that a sugar rush would accompany frosting...he was all in!

My second cake - clowns!

I don't have pics of the third cake (final one in the the first course) for two reasons. One, it was roses and I am really bad at making roses. Seriously. Two, they are on a friends camera and she has not sent them to me. :-)

The second course was all about Royal Icing and flowers. Lots and lots of flowers! We made flowers for three weeks...then put the cake together. I could have grown a garden!