A 'Cake-tastic' Time!

First of all, excuse the sheer amount of enthusiasm in this post - we are still running on what we like to call a 'cake decorating high'!!!! All day yesterday as we prepared for our last class, we were giddy, excited and could not wait to start on our final projects! Here's how it all went down...



Using our cake leveler to shave off the tops

We were tasked with bringing in our own cake already iced, set and ready to decorate. Now, this doesn't seem like a huge job, but icing a cake to Wilton standards is no walk in the park. After baking our cakes (chocolate and golden yellow - YUM) and preparing the buttercream icing, we set out to ice our layered 8 inch cakes. This is a very important part to cake decorating, as the icing should look as smooth and crumb free as possible. We had a bit of difficulty with our chocolate cake, as tiny dark crumbs oozed themselves into our clean and crisp white icing. We did our best to get these specks out, but weren't 100 percent successful. That's ok though...practice makes perfect. The hardest part is stepping away from the cake and admitting 'that's just how it's going to be!'. We have some issues with that last bit....and it's always that extra attempt with the spatula that seems to cause the biggest headaches!!! We managed though...here's our cake prep before class...

**SIDE NOTE: These cakes turned out PERFECTLY - no cake-tastrophe's this time, which was a relief - the right brand definitely makes the difference!



Icing all set and ready for decroating!!

Getting to class was so exciting as we got to see everyone's cakes! They were all in different colours and some people brought in flowers already made to use for decorating. FUN! Before we took to our cakes, we practiced some writing (which is EXTREMELY difficult and A LOT harder than it looks). We had originally planned on writing 'The Drive to 25' on one of ours, but quickly realized that this was not going to happen if we wanted our cake to look half-decent! So we scrapped that idea! Then, we learned how to make ribbon roses, which are also very hard! They take a lot of patience and delicate work - both of which we will need a lot of practice with. Our instructor told us that it takes at least 1000 roses to make a good one, so we have a LONG way to go!! They are fun though and do look very nice, if you get the hang of it.

Then, the moment came - we could decorate our cakes!! Yay!! Since we threw out our 'writing' idea, we decided to go with purple roses on one cake. We piped leaves, dots and a shelled border around the edges for added detail. It looked quite sophisticated and we were pleased!! In four short weeks, we were amazed at how we were able to create such a fancy cake!!! On our second cake, we decided to bring in an image of a sunflower to transpose onto our cake. We used piping gel to trace the image, then transferred the picture to our cake with parchment paper and piped in the lines with our yellow and green icing. Chocolate chips completed the centre of the sunflower and added a design around the edge of the cake. We weren't sure how this would turn out, but we were super happy with the end result!!! In the end, two cakes = success!!!! Working together on these cakes has showed us how much fun we have baking and being creative together. Who knows..maybe we can capitalize on this in the future...??

So there you have it! We are sad that the class is over - we had a blast and learned so much. We are soooo happy that we decided to make this part of our 'Drive to 25' - it's definitely something we had always wanted to do, and we're so glad we didn't wait any longer! Definitely a great lesson - don't wait to do things you've always wanted to do. For some reason things get in the way and there are always excuses, but why postpone? You'll never know what you'd be missing! For us, we just might sign up for the next course....who knows?! Baking is something we absolutely love, we feel so at home in the kitchen, and this class has only reinforced this and showed us some new and exciting tools. We cannot wait to keep practicing and experimenting - if you ever need/want a cake, let us know and we will be more than happy to show you our stuff!!

Here we are with our final cakes....Happy Baking :)