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When I made my goals list, I included “Take a cake decorating class.” I thought that the classes looked fun, and I thought it might be a useful skill for my kids’ birthday parties. I had exactly one class before I tackled the dinosaur cake at Cullen’s birthday party (fortunately, the class covered the star technique which is employed heavily in the dino cake).

I took the Wilton Basics class. Our first lesson covered the basics of baking a cake and making our icing. She explained how we were to ice our cake and fill our icing bags (as well as some various options for doing all of this). We only practiced one technique. We practiced the star technique with white icing on the cookies.

In the second class, we learned a few more piping techniques. We were to bring a single layer cake, level and ice it, and decorate it using the transfer technique and a few simple piping techniques. I decided to transfer the fish pattern, and we brought it to Cullen’s teachers the following day to celebrate his birthday.

We learned a few different flowers in the third class. I experimented with my icing in this class and tried to use an alternative to the Crisco that the buttercream recipe calls for. It didn’t seem to work very well for me. I wanted to find a “healthier” alternative, but I think I’ll stick to Crisco (and butter). I only halfheartedly did my cupcakes as I was disappointed in the consistency of the icing. It seemed the right consistency when I made it, but it was definitely too thin while I was trying to decorate. I’m not sure if it warmed up in the bag in my hand or if it just didn’t hold up in the same way as the recommended recipe. The colors separated oddly in the bag, too.

We learned how to do flowers on the nail, like this one (which I think is the “pom pom flower”).

I was ready to fill my cupcake with chocolate icing! Let’s go! I learned that the cupcake nail isn’t a good idea for decorating the cupcakes. One of mine fell to its doom after it was fully decorated. Our instructor had warned us about that, but she encouraged us to try it as it works for some people. It did not work for me!

We did various flowers and leaves. I wasn’t happy with how most of mine turned out. My icing was definitely too thin.

I like the fancy swirled bases, and that was easy to do. I think I might have to do some fancy swirled cupcakes for Maddie’s birthday party to supplement the cake. I’ll just leave them plain or let Maddie put on some sprinkles. I think I have seen Winnie the Pooh sprinkles somewhere, but I haven’t been able to find them now that I’m looking for them.

In the last class, we learned how to do the famous Wilton Rose. The Wilton people are quite proud of their rose technique. I was skeptical, but I think my roses turned out pretty well. I was very pleased with how my finale cake turned out, too. I went with 3 shades of purple to keep it simple. I didn’t want to have too many different colors (or change my tips very often in class).

Here’s another close up of the flowers on top. Pretty!

Posted by kerry on Wednesday, February 9th, 2011 at 6:59am.
Categories: life.