Cakes by Cody

Cake #32: Italian Cream Cake

2009-05-28T22:28:00.003-07:00

Although not the prettiest cake in town, this Italian Cream Cake is one of the best-tasting cakes one could ever imagine! The recipe creates a 3-layer cake that is stuffed with pecans and coconut and then covered in an ultra-sweet cream cheese icing. This cake is bound to be well-liked; however, I will warn that the extreme richness will allow few to finish their slice!

Italian Cream Cake

1 cup Buttermilk

1 tsp. baking soda

5 eggs, separated

2 cups sugar

1 stick butter

½ cup shortening

2 cups flour, sifted

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup chopped pecans

1 small can coconut

Combine soda and buttermilk and let stand. Before mixing cake, beat separated egg whites until stiff. Set aside. Cream sugar, butter, and shortening. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add buttermilk alternately with flour to creamed mixture. Stir in vanilla. Fold in egg whites. Gently stir in pecans and coconut. Back in 3 9-inch greased, floured layer pans at 325 for 25-35 minutes. Frost cake with Cream Cheese Icing when cool.

Cream Cheese Icing

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

½ stick butter

1 box powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup chopped pecans

Beat cheese and margarine until smooth. Add sugar and beat well. Add vanilla and pecans stir well. Frost cake between layers; on top, and on the sides.

Cake #31: Flower Patch Surprise

2009-02-26T20:45:00.006-07:00

Last week, my boss celebrated her birthday; unfortunately, with so many coworkers in-and-out of the office, we didn't get a chance to celebrate until today. For some odd reason, we decided that the theme of her party should be opossums (it was based on a joke shared at our last staff meeting.) My coworkers had hoped that I would make a "opossum" cake - but I was unsure how exactly one goes about making a "opossum" cake.

My original plan was to create a garden of cupcakes, and then add a small fondant opossum to one of the cupcakes. After working hours to create the flowers, I didn't really feel that I had time to experiment with fondant modeling; therefore, I scraped the opossum idea and decided to merely make a hilly, flowered meadow.

Cake #30: A Howling Good Cupcake

2009-01-27T19:57:00.002-07:00

Although I'm leaving for vacation in a couple days, I still somehow got roped into baking the birthday cake for one of my co-workers. Since I was a little pressed for time, I decided to bake cupcakes so that the bake time would be reduced. Fortunately, the co-worker celebrating her birthday is a big supporter of wolves (she and her husband apparently do a lot of volunteer work trying to preserve the wolf's habitat.)

Anyway, I had been wanting to make these "wolf" cupcakes from Hello, Cupcake for awhile, so I thought this would be the perfect occasion. To make the wolf, I cut a large marshmallow to make the snout and ears. Then, I covered the entire cupcake in chocolate frosting using the leave tip. For a finishing touch, I adding a few M&Ms for the nose and eyes.

Cake #29: "Hot Chocolate" Cake

2008-12-21T23:10:00.005-07:00

A couple months ago, a former colleague emailed me a recipe for a cake-in-a-mug, which gave me the idea for these delightful holiday gifts for my current co-workers. The original recipe created an individual serving that could be baked in the microwave. Unfortunately, the resulting cake was far from desirable; the microwaved-cake was extremely dense and ill tasting...in fact, it reminded me of the cake/brownie commonly found in frozen TV dinners.

However, since I liked the mug-cake idea so much, I decided to use the idea - only instead of baking the cake directly in the mugs, I used a traditional cake mix in Wilton's extra-large cupcakes. I, then, merely topped the cupcakes with a generous amount of buttercream; finally, I added a peppermint stick for decoration (I had originally planned to also top these with chocolate sprinkles, but I accidentally forget to add them before I had the mugs wrapped...)

Cake #28: Happy Birthday, Lynne

2008-11-13T20:29:00.005-07:00

Since I was somewhat pressed for time this week, I chose this relatively simple design to celebrate a co-workers birthday. The cake was merely frosted in a basic white-buttercream; then, I added various strips of colored-fondant to create the exterior border.

After completing the fondant strips, I completed the look by adding purple-buttercream dots around the top and bottom of the stripes. Finally, I pulled out my best penmanship to add her name as the final touch.

Cake #27: The Great Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-21T22:16:00.004-07:00

Since there are a couple Halloween cakes I plan on trying this year, I thought I'd get an early start by making these simple pumpkin cupcakes (from Hello, Cupcake.) These easy cupcakes were made by mounding a large lump of buttercream frosting atop a French Vanilla cupcake. After smoothing the icing, I merely dipped them in orange sugar crystals.

To finish the cupcakes, I added a short section of watermelon twizzler (from a Rainbow favored pack) for the stem. Finally, I used a slightly darker orange to create the line segments in the pumpkins flesh; I used a tip 3 to complete these lines, but I really wish I'd have used a larger tip.

Cake #26: Give a Hoot

2008-10-06T22:18:00.003-07:00

This past weekend, one of my co-workers celebrated her birthday, so I decided to make some Owl cupcakes, from Hello, Cupcake, in her honor. Later this month when I have my "Kids in the Kitchen" program, I plan on having the children make these owl cupcakes. Since I was unsure of exactly how these would turn-out, I decided to kill two birds with one stone by using my practice cupcakes for her birthday celebration.

To make these cupcakes, I began by coating each cupcake with a base-layer of store-bought chocolate frosting. I then added two frosted-halves of Oreo cookies with a small Junior mint for the pupil. For the beak, I simply used a yellow M&M (the book called for a banana Runt, but for some reason I couldn't locate any Runts at my local stores!) Finally, I finished the face by adding some chocolate-frosting "feathers" with my leaf-tip #352.

Cake #25: Jon's Birthday

2008-09-30T20:45:00.007-07:00

Today is Jon's 26^th birthday, so I had to bake him a cake (especially since he was so sweet and bought me a wonderful little cake back in January for my birthday!) Since he normally complains that my cakes are too feminine, I knew I'd have to make something especially manly for him.

I wasn't really sure what to bake for him... At first, I considered making him a faux pecan pie cake - a thin layer of tan-colored fondant lining a pie plate with a single-layer cake inside. (Jon happens to hate pecan pie (which I love!) Anyway, when I mentioned this idea, he didn't seem at all impressed by my idea; in fact, I believe he openly refused to eat such a cake! So, I had to come up with something else.

Jon also has a complete weakness for Hershey "Cookies 'n Cream" bars. So, I decided to simply make him a cake completely covered with candy-pieces. I stenciled his name in Oreo crumbs and then added small chucks of chocolate to cover the cake. To finish the look, I added more cookie crumbs along the bottom to form a simple border.

I hope he likes it!

Cake #24: Dirt Cake for Kids

2008-09-23T20:08:00.005-07:00

This afternoon, I had my first "Kids in the Kitchen" for the children at my library. I had the children make very basic dirt cakes with fun gummi worms. Each child was given a cupcake (which I had baked the night before) and they began by frosting them with store-bought chocolate frosting. Then, I gave each child a plastic bag with 2 Oreo cookies; by squeezing and pounding the bags, the children made their dark soil. (The kids really enjoyed getting to smash the crap out of some Oreos!)

We made two holes in the cupcake tops by inserting a straw and pulling it back out (the kids also enjoyed sucking the cake and frosting from inside the straw.) Finally, we added two gummi worms to the holes to finish off the garden look...though I'm not sure how many worms there are in the Arizona desert!

The kids greatly enjoyed making (and eating) their little dirt cupcakes. The only thing that I didn't like was the speed at which the kids worked. From start to finish, it only took about 15 minutes to complete their cupcakes. Guess they'll just have to make two cupcakes next month!

Cake #23: Goodbye, Dan and Jan

2008-09-15T21:33:00.002-07:00

Two of my co-workers are being transferred to a different department this week, and I was somehow coerced into baking the cake. I must admit that I had a great deal of difficulty in selecting a design; apparently going away cakes aren't that popular.

My original plan was to frost my cake in this blue icing and then add several expressions of farewell (So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye.) My plan was to write the words on wax paper and then freeze them so that they could easily be transferred to the top of my cake; sadly, the frozen buttercream transfer technique did not work with single letters/words - instead the icing merely stuck to the wax paper, refusing to "transfer".

This left me again having to resort to a "plan B" at the last minute. (I mean really, does it seem like I'm getting worse and worst with each cake I make!) My first though to salvage this cake was to merely write free-hand across the top of the cake; however, after make first letter, I quickly decided that wasn't an answer (and I now had a large "G" to cover!) So, I resorted to using the Wilton templates I purchased long ago.

While I did have much better luck with the stencils on this attempt, the letters were many times too small for the size cake I chose. If the letters had been 2-3 times bigger, this design might have worked. I will say that I love the gumpaste daisies; they look so nice and are amazing easy to make!

Cake #22: Starry Night

2008-09-10T11:18:00.009-07:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been wanting to try my hand at a frozen buttercream transfer. After seeing Van Gogh's Starry Night on cupcakes in the book Hello, Cupcake, I thought it would make the perfect design for my first buttercream transfer.

After last week's failed attempt at baking a sheet cake, I decided I was going to break down and actually buy a Wilton cake pan designed specifically for sheet cakes. Since my cake last week had been so short, I decided I was going to compensate for this by using more mix. The directions on the cake pan called for approximately 7 cups of batter; I mixed two mixes (which should have yielded 9-12 cups.) My original plan was to use ¾ of the mixute in my sheet cake and then make an additional dozen cupcakes; however, when I started pouring the batter, the pan didn't look "full" until I had used all but the last cup...and what's the point of making just 3-4 cupcakes? So, I simply added the remaining cup in with the rest.

Well, 15 minutes into the baking process, I smell something burning; when I opened the oven, I discovered that the batter was erupting from the pan and coating the oven's bottom! Fortunately, I was able to add a cookie sheet beneath the cake to catch most of the spillage. Although a mess, I must say the end result was quite satisfactory; my cake was the prefect height and nearly flat.

To decorate this cake, I used a buttercream icing that was actually made with half shortening and half butter; this mixture was much more creamy than the all shortening mixture I usually use. It also taste much creamier - in fact, one friend compared it to the icing found in the middle of a twinkie. To make the buttercream transfer, I merely printed a color book outline of Van Gogh's painting, and started adding the color. I'm not entirely sure that Starry Night was the best topic for a buttercream transfer, but the idea of copying it free-hand just wasn't an option. The technique itself was fairly simply...although I would definitely using an easier picture next time. I will also warn that it is completely necessary to throughly tape the wax paper to the coloring sheet - I only used two small pieces of tape, which resulted in the paper warping (which led to unslightly line across my design.)

I finished the cake off with a quick shell border around the top and bottom, but the creaming icing and the warm weather didn't combine too well - resulting in the loss of several shells in the bottom left corner. Overall, I did enjoy experimenting with buttercream transfers and will definitely be trying this again in the future!

Cake #21: An Attempt at Elegance

2008-09-02T21:06:00.007-07:00

When I first began baking this cake, I had hoped to try my hand at a frozen buttercream transfer; however, when I pulled my 9" x 13" cake from the over, I discovered that my simple layer cake was completely lop-sided! I don't know whether it was my pan or the oven rack, but one side of my cake was about 1½" while the other side was well over 2½".

Since my dream of a perfect layer cake with beautiful buttercream transfer was out the window, I made an attempt at salvaging the cake by cutting it in two and creating a layer cake. While this seemed like a good solution, the two layers failed to align, thus creating large gaps that were extremely difficult to frost.

Fortunately, the formal, yet simple, design for the top, which came from the Wilton Course 1 book, proved itself a good mask for some of the problems. This first usage of my Wilton comb on the sides leaves a lot to be desired; I choose to believe that had the cake itself been better shaped, the comb's results would have been much more satisfactory.

Although this cake is far from my original vision, I am rather proud of my salvage job! I know it's not 100% perfect, but I am fairly happy with the end result.

Cake #20: Raspberry Disaster

2008-08-19T22:20:00.005-07:00

With the extreme heat of the Arizona summer, it's hard to get inspired to bake; however, since it has been over a month since my last caking adventure, I decided to finally head back to the kitchen.

I had seen this cute raspberry cake in one of the Wilton instruction books and thought it would be a fun and easy cake to try...boy was I wrong!

My problems arose from the usage of a whipped cream icing. Although I had never worked with it, it seemed simple enough (after all the recipe was basically just heavy cream and a couple tablespoons of sugar.) Unfortunately, I believe the cream just couldn't stand up to the heat of the Sonoran Desert - literally! No matter how hard I whipped the cream or how long I left it in the fridge, it just wouldn't remain stiff. When I tried to frost the cake, the whipped cream just wouldn't spread... and that which did stick to the sides just sank to the cakeboard moments later. I repeatedly tried chilling the cake, but nothing seems to work.

Fortunately, the vines and leaves did distract from the general sloppiness of the base layer; however, by adding the red raspberries, I was quickly able to lower the cake back to its original horridness. The fresh raspberries were dipped in red sugar, which didn't stick to the raspberries at all! Sadly, I didn't learn this lesson until after I added the first couple raspberries and scattered red sugar crystals all over the top of my cake.

Finally, due to the weakness of the whipped cream, the raspberries on the sides are completely too heavy and keep falling off...why did I bake again??? Looks like I need to stick to buttercream!!!

Cake #19: Ducks in a Barrel

2008-07-08T22:01:00.004-07:00

Although I first saw this cake used for a baby shower, I thought it was just too cute not to try myself! I simply had to start by frosting an 8" round cake in light blue buttercream. Then, I added 1.25" strips of brown fondant to the sides to create the barrel; if I were to recreate this cake, I would use much thinner strips to create the illusion of a taller barrel. To complete the cake, I merely added two rubber ducks (purchased at Walmart for 50¢) and small blue bubbles crafted from fondant.

This cake was extremely simple and quite the hit at work! Plus, the evenly-sized strips of brown fondant along the sides made cutting the cake a breeze!

Cake #18: Basket o' Berries

2008-07-02T11:35:00.002-07:00

Since it's been so extremely brutal at work the past few weeks, I wanted to take a special summer pick-me-up cake for a little relief; with Independence Day this Friday, I also decided my cake need to have a patriotic feel.

I originally saw this cake on Cakecentral a few months ago and knew I had to try it. I baked two 8" white cakes to make a 4-layer cake with strawberry-favored buttercream. Since I've used the basket weave technique on several different cakes, I decided to spice it up ever so slightly by using a different tip, which gave me the smooth weave. Unfortunately, I failed to tint my base layer of buttercream so there are several places where the white buttercream underneath glares out!

After completing the weave, I simply added a shell border around the top and then some fresh summer berries. I had originally hoped to use the rope border around both the top and bottom, but the amount of buttercream required to cover this cake was amazing; after competing the basket weave, I barely had enough left for the shells around the top!

Cake #17: I Want Candy!

2008-06-16T21:24:00.003-07:00

I was recently showing one of my co-workers some of my favorite cakes from Cakecentral, and she absolutely fell in love with this candy cake! Since she went so far as to actually purchase the kit-kats for the cake, I feel that the least I could do was actually bake the cake.

This is by far the easiest cake I've made in a long, long time. I merely had to ice the chocolate cake in chocolate buttercream and then add the candy. To make this cake on an 8 inch round cake, it takes about 8 1/2 - 9 regular sized kit-kat bars. (I only used 8 1/2, but after seeing how much space I'd left between the candies, I wish I'd have gone ahead and used the full 9. I'm hoping that the extra spacing will at least make the slicing a little easier...) Then, I simply added about 3/4 pound of plain M&Ms to the top of the cake. Simple, huh? I'm sure this cake will be death by chocolate...but what a good way to go!

Cake #16: Fondant and Gumpaste Finale

2008-06-10T21:39:00.004-07:00

Tonight was my final Wilton cake class. Although I'm somewhat glad to be finished (not having the pressure of having to bake a cake each Monday and not lugging all my boxes of cake decorating supplies to Michaels), I'm going to be at a loss without my weekly cake instruction. I guess I'll just have to set up a cake schedule for myself...I definitely have a lot of ideas I'd like to try! Thank God for Cake Central!

For my finale cake, I decided to make several new gumpaste flowers from the Wilton gumpaste kit I recently purchased. I made a handful of pink orchids, which were extremely time consuming; unfortunately, they are also extremely fragile, so most of my orchids broke before I could even attach them to my cake. I also made numerous blue sweet peas, which proved to be much easier than the orchids! I had hoped to make many, many more flowers than actually ended up on the cakes, but with the extra difficulty of the gumpaste flowers that just didn't materialize. I'm sure the people at work won't mind!

Cake # 15: Pansies and Daisies for Sale

2008-06-05T22:43:00.002-07:00

One of my co-workers is having a special family function, so I agreed to make this cake for her. Since her mother-in-law's favorite flower is the pansy and her mother likes daisies, I combined the two to create a wreath effect around the cake's top.

I iced this cake in a light-yellow buttercream and then covered the sides with the basket weave. I created the pansies from the basic royal icing and the daisies and leaves from fondant. I was really happy with how the daisies and leaves came out...the pansies could have been a little better though. However, once it was all combined together on the cake, the end result was quite pleasant - I hope she likes it too!

Cake #14: More Fun with Fondant...and Gumpaste!

2008-05-27T21:17:00.004-07:00

Tonight, in my latest Wilton Course (Fondant and Gumpaste), we learned several new techniques, which we could add to our cakes tonight. Among the techniques were: the draped cloth, handkerchiefs, the zig-zag swags and borders.

I chose not to add all these new elements to my cake, instead going for a more elegant look of the draped cloth and roses. I am extremely pleased with how well this cake turned out; after my last disaster with my co-worker's birthday cake, I was beginning to doubt my abilities. Fortunately, all the gumpaste and fondant things were extremely easy and provided a real boost to my esteem!

Cake #13: Happy Birthday, Stephanie

2008-05-26T21:19:00.005-07:00

This week, one of my favorite co-workers has her birthday. When I asked her what type of cake she wanted, she requested that I make a large Starbuck's cup. Since I'm not comfortable actually sculpting a cake, I decided to make a stacked cake with a smaller Starbuck's cup of Rice Krispies covered in fondant. However, when I tried to cover the Rice Krispies in fondant, it didn't turn out exactly as planned.

Having to scrap my plans at the last minute, I had to hurriedly re-plan the design. Being slightly unhappy about this turn of events, I simply added a few quick buttercream decorations and called it quits. I'm sure my co-workers will care much more about the inside rather than what's on the exterior!

Cake #12: What's bugging you?

2008-05-19T22:10:00.005-07:00

This summer, my library's children's reading program is "Catch the Reading Bug" so I decided to make this batch of special bug cupcakes for our staff meeting tomorrow.

I found this design in the book, Hello, Cupcake. To make the bugs, I used melted chocolate to trace the legs and antennae. Then, I added various sized M&Ms to make the bodies. It was somewhat difficult to pipe the chocolate into such thin lines...melted chocolate doesn't seem to have near the consistency of icing. I also learned that I had to allow the chocolate to solidify before I could actually add the M&Ms; when I added the M&Ms to the soft chocolate, it completely flattened the chocolate and ruined the design.

Eventually, I mastered the technique and had enough bugs for the cupcakes on hand. Hopefully my coworkers appreciate my hard work!

Cake #11: Everything's Sunny...too sunny

2008-05-18T17:33:00.001-07:00

This weekend, I purchased the book Hello, Cupcake, one of the most original cake/cupcake books I've seen in recent times! It has so many cute ideas, and I plan on trying several of them.

These sunflowers cupcakes were one of the reasons I decided to actually buy this book. With simple cupcakes frosted in green buttercream frosting, I simply had to top with an Oreo and then use the leaf tip to make the yellow petals. Unfortunately, with the onset of summer weather (it was 106 the day I decorated these) my icing didn't stand up too well...I might have to make my buttercream a little thicker than normal these next couple months.

Cake #10: Stacks and Stacks of Cake

2008-05-06T21:23:00.007-07:00

Tonight was the final night of my Wilton Course III: Fondant and Tiered Cakes; for my final project, I made this three-tiered stacked cake. (The top and bottom cakes are chocolate with an Oreo buttercream filling, and the middle cake is lemon with a lemon custard filling.) All three cakes are covered in the Wilton fondant, which I dyed blue.

To decorate the cake, I piped buttercream flowers along the sides and then used a paint brush to soften the edges and give the flowers an embroidered-look (hence the reason this technique is called "brushed embroidery"). To finish the cake, I added a multi-looped fondant bow atop the cake and a ribbon border around the bottom of each cake.

Although I am fairly content with the finished cake, I definitely feel there's lots of room for improvement. I again had difficulty in getting the fondant to smoothly cover the cake; however, I did find that my ability improved as I did each of the 3 cakes. Fortunately, the ribbon borders were a big help in covering some of the mistakes. I also want to comment on the great amount of time and energy I had to invest into this cake. I would say that to bake and decorate this cake took approximately 12 hours! I can understand why wedding cakes are so expensive!!!

Cake #9: Fondant Surprise

2008-04-22T21:55:00.008-07:00

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!

2008-04-22T21:53:00.005-07:00

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

2008-04-21T23:05:00.004-07:00

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

2008-04-13T19:15:00.014-07:00

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

2008-04-08T21:07:00.006-07:00

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!

2008-04-02T21:42:00.008-07:00

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...

Cake #5: Happy Birthday, Attempt #2

2008-03-31T23:54:00.004-07:00

For the past couple weeks, I've been taking the level 2 Wilton cake decorating course, which focuses on creating flowers with royal icing. Since we're just focusing on the flower techniques, we haven't needed to bake actual cakes for the course; however, since a couple of my coworkers have birthdays to celebrate, I decided to combine some of the new flower techniques with the skills from my last class to get a little more practice.

This cake is a simple 8" torte with basic buttercream frosting. On top of the cake are yellow buttercream roses, pink apple blossoms from royal frosting, and several violets, also, done in royal frosting. Like my last cake, I again attempted using the Wilton writing templates for the letter. Although the icing was a little thicker than ideal, the lettering came out far superior to my previous attempt (the lettering looks much better on the cake than it does in this picture.)

Cake #4: Happy Birthday Kirby

2008-03-07T21:30:00.008-07:00

Since it was my younger brother's birthday is this weekend, I decided to make him a special birthday cake. I had originally intended to make this cake orange (which is my brother's favorite color) with white decorations; unfortunately, I couldn't create an orange with the yellow and red coloring I had, so he'll have to settle for a peach cake.

I had also planned on writing "Happy Birthday" on the cake using some of the Wilton templates and then tracing them with icing. Although I had no trouble getting the template to imprint in the cake's icing, actually tracing the lettering proved quite difficult. The template's lettering was extremely small and compact, so the end-product looking extremely messy. Fortunately, I was able to scrape most of this frosting from the cake's surface and replace it with the rose motif I had used in my previous cake. (I will congratulate myself on successfully mastering the roses. With icing that was actually the correct consistency this time, I was able to complete all seven roses for this cake in less than 15 minutes!)

Cake #3: Everything's Coming Up Roses

2008-03-04T20:53:00.003-07:00

This cake has a mound of seven pink buttercream roses with small (tip #352) green leaves. Although I practiced making the roses for several hours and had the technique fairly well-mastered, the texture of my icing was somehow working against me when I attempted them in class. I made at least two dozen roses in order to get even one or two of the above roses...thank God I had made some in advance! To finish this cake, I simply added the basic shell border (tip #21) along the bottom and completed the look with small white dots (tip #3).

Cake #2: Drop Flowers Galore!

2008-02-26T20:46:00.005-07:00

For this basic white cake with buttercream frosting, I used the #2D tip to create a variety of blue flowers with #3 dots in the center. Although these are a fairly easy flower to create, I had some difficulty with the drop flower tip; I believe I would have had better luck if I had been using the tip specially-made for left-handers ! To finish the cake, I added a simple shell border along the bottom with the #21 tip.

Although decorating this cake was fairly easy, I could definitely use some more practice on my drop flowers. This past week, I spent most of my practice time working on the roses for my cake next week...guess I should have taken a moment or two to work on the borders. Hopefully my practice will pay off next week when I attempt to decorate with roses!

Cake #1: I'm a Star!

2008-02-19T21:34:00.002-07:00

For my first decorating experience, I iced an 8" round French Vanilla cake (from a mix) in white buttercream frosting. For the decoration, I used a "star" cookie cutters to imprint the large star shapes on top the cake. I, then, outlined the stars in yellow buttercream using the #3 tip. To complete the cake, I used the #16 tip to fill the stars and the #18 tip to create the borders.

Although the cake ended up looking alright, I had a major problem with the base-layer of white buttercream. Apparently, I added too much water to my icing recipe. When I first iced my cake, there was no problem; however, when I opened my cake cover the next day at class, most of the icing along the sides had sagged and a clear sugary-liquid had oozed from the icing onto the cake board. Fortunately, the yellow borders distract (or at least cover) this problem.

Hopefully, more practice with the basic tips (and a thicker icing) will make for a more successful second attempt.