Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Fabulously Fierce....cakes?!

Yup, you read it right...I am trying to expand my horizons yet again with a new craft/art: cake decorating! I signed up for a class and will document my trials and tribulations for y'all here on a weekly basis.

Now, to give you some background, I am not an exceptional cook (just ask my husband) and for the most part my baking skills extend to slicing into pre-baked cookies and throwing them in the oven. But, I am obsessed with cake decorating shows: Ace of Cakes, Cake Challenge, Cake Boss, etc. You name it, I'll watch it. For the most part I am fascinated with the art and sculpture aspect that goes into making an extraordinary cake. After months of sitting on my ass and watching these shows the thought finally dawned on me that I should try it (duh!).

I signed up for Wilton's cake decorating at the local Michaels and had my first class (taught by the lovely and hilarious Rebecca) last Monday evening. The first lesson was basically going over all the essentials and watching the instructor ice a cake (which, of course, she made look soooo easy....PSH!). We were sent home with the homework to make a cake and icing, ice the thing and bring it to the next class. It was perfectly acceptable to bring in a cake made from a box mix (the ONLY kind of cake I have ever made), but no, I had to challenge myself to make a cake from scratch. I found a recipe online and armed myself with all the proper tools and got to work.

I measured out my ingredients, used the fun hand mixer (which doubled as a nice upper arm workout) and poured my batter into the pan. I even used the cool bake even strips that came in my ultra snazzy 101 Piece Tool Caddy. I felt like a true baker. I popped that baby in the oven, set the timer and went off to work on some lampshades. An hour later, the timer goes off and I peek in at my cake and the top is completely cracking...I panic, throw open the oven door shove a toothpick into the top and it seemingly comes out clean. I take it out to cool and an hour later I have a nice concave cake, waaaa! I torte the badboy (look at me learning the fancy words!! It means to slice it in half) and lo and behold the entire center is mush. I was crushed and felt like a complete dumbass, but sucked it up, cut off the good pieces and voila - here is the result of my first ever made-from-scratch cake:



So, so sad.

I quickly realized the error of my ways and whipped up another batch of batter and this time cooked the shit out of the thing with much more favorable results.



I torted it again and iced it up in preparation for last night's class.



During class we did some practice piping, which is quite easy when you have a pattern to follow, but then it was time to actually decorate the cake.



I opted to do a gel transfer onto the top of my cake with some scroll designs. This means you take a piece of parchment paper and pipe out your design in clear piping gel onto it, then place it on top of your cake and pull the paper back. It gives you a nice stencil to pipe on to. Then I added some drop stars and zigzag to the borders. It came out ok. I had these visions of grandeur when picturing my first decorated cake, assuming that my first attempt would be this perfectly beautiful masterpiece. I had to get over that fast and I think for a first attempt it was pretty damn good!



At least Geoff seemed to like it!








Next week....cupcakes!!

15 comments:

Pili said...

Looks pretty good to me!!

I can't wait to see the next installments of your cake decorating classes!!

angrylittledeadgirl said...

I hope he bit into that cake AFTER you got your grade!!!

Not bad for a first try. Not bad at all. I'm impressed!

Andreanna Glamasaurus said...

Looks like a yummy cake!

Mara said...

Can I haz some? Those look yummy Kylie!

Poisoned Creations said...

That looks so great Kylie! Never would have guessed it was your first time piping :)

bubba said...

Your first try and you've already made a prettier cake than 99.9% of humankind. How rad is that? Keep up the good work.

XOXO Bubba

PZCreations said...

You did awesome for your first time!
My birthday is in April...just sayin'. =)

Dusty said...

Awesome job and article. Very talented.

WickedBadNaughty said...

Kylie, you did an AWESOME job on your first cake!

Goddamit, now I want some cake! lolz };D

WickedBadNaughty said...

Kylie, you did an AWESOME job on your first cake!

Goddamit, now I want some cake! lolz };D

Brooke said...

This is pretty rad! I actually took the Wilton Cake Decorating academy (the headquarters are a few towns ayay from us) a few years ago! You have NO idea how often the skills come in handy! Kylie, that first (second) cake came out awesome!

I can't wait to read what you do each week! How exciting!

**dreams of cupcakes**

**side note, I think you should make a doggie-friendly cake, comeplete with doggie friendly piped icing....for those fur babies! ;)

Jana*s Fun Cakes said...

Keep on keepin on. Teaching yourself is the best way to learn. We'll have to move up there and go into business together...that would be one kick ass team!

smarmy said...

Hey, that's fancier than any cake I've ever made!

This class sounds awesome... learning a new craft is always rad, but in this one you get to eat what you make!

Unknown said...

That sounds like so much fun!!! You're off to a great start. :)

Concertina said...

YAY! I got to see your cake! *chuckle*

It's gorgeous!! I love the design on the top...it looks so delicate!

PS - Geoff cracks me up. I miss you guys.