Giz and I will have to duke it out over which blogs will be the next recipients over this awards (there are just too many great blogs out there!)
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This week is only going to be a single "she said" because Giz had to miss her 2nd cake decorating class.
The second class was less confusing than the first. My teacher is friendly and well-intentioned but gets a bit mean in the heat of the moment. She gets a bit gruff when she sees you doing something incorrectly.
We were told that we would probably have enough time to finish decorating our cakes in the second class, but I didn't even start mine. It wasn't until I returned home and got the urge around 10pm that I even started my cake.
Instead, in class we used our practice board (the yellow thingy).
Everyone else in the class made the traditional rainbow cake. Here, you can see a classmate of mine transfering her rainbow design that she created using piping gel.
Me, I decided to go with a "character cake", a sunflower:
Unfortunately, I learned the semi-hard way that you shouldn't use margarine to grease the pan. I've since bought the Wilton Cake Release product.
Even though the top layer of the cake stuck to the pan, the shape was still retained, and as you'll see, it's covered up in the end.
I used the chocolate buttercream recipe (no food colouring) to create the centre (seeds) of the sunflower.
Following that, I spent about 2 hours piping little yellow starts around the rest of the cake
Midway through, my hand started hurting.
But I stuck it out...
Overall, I was very happy with my first cake. I think I've mastered tips 16 and 21. It took my hand a while to recover. Note to self: don't fill up the bag too much. Saving time to reduce the number of times you have to add icing is not worth the pain associated with squeezing a full icing bag for two hours.
25 comments:
i'll bet your hand muscles are incredible! did you switch hands half-way through? if not, you may end up with one hand massively rippled with muscle and one normal hand. :)
it's a great-looking cake. fantastic job!
That's A LOT of piping. Nice work!!
I think it turned out great! I would probably get too tired and it would have been left half-piped, lol.
Keep us posted on all your delicious cake creations. I have this cake pan, but have yet to use it....I better get cracking:D
What a great job you did! It's beautiful!
I remember waaay back in high school, we did a unit on cake decorating in home-ec, and we did the same kind of decorating with a star tip. It DOES hurt after a while!
I think it's cool you went anti-rainbow. The rainbow and clown cakes are probably the only things keeping me from doing one of these classes!
All these gorgeous cakes are making my tummy rumble. Fantastic work, grad; highly impressed!
Looks great. How tired were your hands after that one? That looks tedious.
How pretty! You did a great job :)
Wow, that looks like it took a lot of piping work, you've sure got a lot of patience! It looks incredible, hope the hands are doing alright.
Well it was worth sticking it out. Came out very cute. I did a similar thing with my Princess cake. Yikes talk about sore hands.
I have been wanting to take a cake decorating class.
If you want to see my "Princess" check it out here: http://lipsmackinggoodness.blogspot.com/search?q=princess
you have the patience of a saint and the hand muscles of a professional wrestler.
If I had piping skills like yours, I'd never leave the house. I'd be too busy piping swear words onto beautiful cakes! :D
oooooh! It's so pretty and summery!
Ooh la la! What a beautiful and sunny presentation! Just lovely. I want a piece.
What a patience you have!!! But the result is worth :D
OY! Oy! Two hours piping icing!
I like your choice of the sunflower cake, though...
WOW!!!
I'm loving that cake tin!!!
That's a lot of piping, but it's a beautiful cake... well worth it.
Bet you got some good Popeye muscles in those arms now!
Nicely decorated sunflower cake!!
You have so much patience. Looks great.
Nice looking cake!
You can make your own cake release. I was given this recipe from my friend Lucy and it works wonderfully.
Bakers Release
1/2 c. canola oil
1/2 c. shortening
1/2 c. flour
Put all ingredients into a bowl, & with electric mixer, whip until well blended. Store at room temp.
Holds for several months.
Oh my god! O_O Very, very nice job.
Gorgeous, but dear god, does that look intense. I'm feeling more and more intimidating with every post. This is really making me appreciate the cake decorating artists that we have out there, like Katie with her cherry blossoms, etc. Although, that said, I learned yesterday that the BEST cake maker in Washington DC (Cakelove) offers classes. Sounds like a pretty fabulous way to spend a "summer off"... But then again, who am I kidding, when would I ever use those skills!!
(Of course, that said, my aunt and uncle took a cake decorating course together and then made their own wedding cake...)
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