Cake #9: Fondant Surprise

For my first fondant cake, I decided to make the classic "gift" cake. I had originally hoped to make this cake yellow with a blue bow; however, since the cake inside is chocolate with a raspberry filling, I thought the yellow/blue/pink combo would be a little too off-putting. Instead, I decided to use green and pink to coordinate with filling.

The most difficult aspect of the cake was actually getting the green icing to lay flat against the cake. Apparently, square cakes are the hardest to cover in fondant since you're trying to cover a square object with a rounded piece of icing. (It would be kinda' like trying to wrap a present without having any visible seams in the gift wrap!) Fortunately, I was able to cover many of the mistakes with the bow and circles.

The bow is constructed of 5 smaller strips of fondant which were shaped individually and then assembled on the cake once they had dried. The circles were merely cut using a set of different-sized cookie cutters. To finish the cake (and to cover all those unsightly cracks along the bottom) I added a simple dot border using white buttercream.

Overall, I am fairly happy with my first attempt with fondant. One of my friends mentioned that this cake looks very "Dr. Seuss-ish", and I have to agree with him....perhaps I'll have to serve it with ham and eggs!

A Whole New Rose!

Tonight in my Wilton Decorating Class, we finally began working with fondant. Now, while I had a great deal of difficulty in actually covering the entire cake with the fondant, the fondant rose was remarkable simple - ok, perhaps simple isn't the correct term. With numerous steps the fondant rose making process can definitely be time consuming; however, none of the steps are particularly difficult and the finished result looks pretty darn nice! I've yet to decided what I'm going to do on my final course cake, but the fondant rose is certainly looking like a contender.

Cake #8: German-y Goodness

Today was the birthday of one of my coworkers; as the new resident baker, I volunteered to make the cake for the celebration. When I asked my co-worker what type of cake he preferred, he said German chocolate. Now, I was really just asking him what favor he preferred...I was planning to use basic buttercream and decorate as I have in my classes. However, since it's his special day, I worked my magic and came up with this scrumptious cake!

I torted an 8x3" round cake into 3 layers and added the traditional coconut/pecan icing between the layers and on top. For the sides and borders, I used a basic chocolate buttercream. I had also planned to add several colorful piece of sugar art formed with color-flow icing; however, when I saw how formal my cake looked, I decided not to use the brightly colored pieces. Thankfully, the cake tasted delicious and was a big hit!

Cake #7: A Delicious Bouquet

I saw the idea for a pot full of cupcake flowers on a number of cake websites, but when I stumbled across this YouTube video explaining how to make these simple flowers, I just knew I had to find an excuse to make them! This week, one of my coworkers is being transferred to better position, so I thought this bouquet would be a nice send-off.

For this bouquet, I used 9 French Vanilla cupcakes decorated as a mixture of carnations and begonias. For the yellow begonias, I merely used the #104 tip to make two simple rows of petals with a smaller center petal. The pink carnations were made in much the same way except that I switched to the #103 tip and made the petals with several quick back-n-forth wavy movements.

To construct the bouquet, I used a styrofoam ball that was about 2" smaller than my pot and then used toothpicks to hold the cupcakes in place; unfortunately, the toothpicks weren't exactly the strongest supports. I can't express the importance of having a styrofoam ball that is at least two inches smaller than your pot in diameter. When I first tried assembling my arrangement, I used a smaller metal bucket, which was almost the same size as the styrofoam, and lead to disasterous results! The cupcakes definitely need the added support of from the pot's rim, which sticks out almost an inch on all sides.

Fortunately, the flower pot did hold the cupcakes, and my coworker really seemed to enjoy it!

Cake #6: Basket o' Flowers

Today was the finale of my Wilton Decorating Course Level II, and we finally combined all our work from the last weeks onto a single cake. This oval cake holds a variety of the royal icing flowers I've made this past month, as well as, the two blue birds I made with color-flow icing.

Tonight, we finished the course with the basket-weave technique along the sides and the rope borders along the top and bottom of the cake. Although the basket-weave technique was slightly more difficult than I had been led to believe, the addition of the borders, flowers, and birds distracts from any flaws which might exist in my weaving.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the way my cake turned out; I'm definitely looking forward to next week's start of Course III: Fondant & Tiered Cakes.

Icing Like A Flower Pro!

From Left to Right: Daffodils, Primroses, Pansies, Daisies, and Roses

As I mentioned in my last post, I am currently taking the Wilton Cake Decorating Course II. Since we're not actually baking cakes each week, we've had plenty of time to learn new flowers. Last week we learned the basic violets and apple blossoms. Although I had considerable trouble successfully making the flowers in class, with some practice at home I was finally able to master the petal technique, which served as a foundation for this week's lessons.

This week, we learned to make Victorian roses, daises, daffodils, pansies, and primroses. I was completely amazed at how quickly and easily I was able to master each of these flowers! I can't wait until next week when I get to make the grand finale cake with all these flowers...