Cake #16: Fondant and Gumpaste Finale

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

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!

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

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?

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

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

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!!!