Wilton Course 2

February has been another month of cakes. Course 2 started up, which meant I was learning how to work with royal icing.

We learned how to make more flowers. It was difficult at first because my icing was too soft. My instructor said that royal icing definitely needs to be whipped right before working with it - not the night before, which I had done. So after successfully making mush, I went home and practiced the flowers on my own. They came out much better.

We only made one cake in the class, and it was our final. For this cake we used all of the flowers from the month, and also learned how to do a basket weave finish. My mind couldn't comprehend the pattern at first but then I got the hang of it. It was time consuming, but I enjoyed it.

I baked my first homemade cake for this final project. To go with a spring theme, I decided on a lemon cake with a raspberry preserve filling.

2010: New Year, Many Changes

This month has flown by. Really, I cannot believe how fast it went. It was an action-packed month and a lot happened during it.

First, I got a kitten. We're naming him Wilson. I think. After Wilson from Home Improvement.

Second, I finished my job at the primary care office last week and started my new one this week at CVMC. I'm the assistant on a new team called The Community Health Team. It's too bad we aren't forced to wear super hero costumes. I feel like they're appropriate for our name. We work with five nearby practices (doctor's offices) to shift the focus from responsive to preventative care. It is still too hard for me to explain quickly so that's where I'll leave it.

Third, after 6 years of working at the Hannaford in Milton, I finally moved on and am now working at the one in Barre! Oh boy! I just can't leave Hannaford. I hadn't worked the register in over a year and a half, but that's what I'm doing now. The first day was interesting. Couldn't remember the codes to green pepper or broccoli crowns, but for some reason could remember brussel sprouts and Ginger root. I think the codes have changed on me, so it's not entirely my fault.

Fourth, and most importantly, I took the Wilton Cake Decorating Course 3. It was my intro into working with fondant and building tiered cakes. We only had to make two cakes, and I was thankful because I was so busy. Below are the photos:

First fondant cake

I learned a few things from this cake.

1. Always roll the fondant as thin as you can. As you can see in the photos, my fondant was thick.Saves money and fondant, and makes it taste slightly better.
2. I don't like fondant. It was difficult to eat this cake, so that's saying a lot! Why do we decorate a cake with something that we're going to pull off and throw away? This stuff is expensive!
3. Co-workers either don't like strawberry cake as much as vanilla. That, or they're afraid to eat a fondant-decorated cake.
4. Most importantly - when bringing a cake to work, no one will eat the cake unless someone else has made a cut into it first. They would rather the cake sit there all day untouched than to be the one who breaks into it.

I tried to work with thinner fondant on my next cake. The rose covered tiered cake too much longer than a gift cake. I spent all of last weekend in the kitchen coloring, rolling, and cutting fondant only to make half the amount of roses that they had suggested in our book. Here's the final result:

I made 16 flowers even though the book asked for over 30. One woman next to me in class had amazing roses. She had rolled her fondant out much thinner than I did. I was worried about doing that since I was having enough difficulty keeping them from ripping, but next time I work with fondant I will still go thinner. The roses took forever to do, but the leaves were a piece of cake (pun!!). 

I actually have to make 4 cakes in the upcoming year. It'll be exciting. Now that I am working much closer to home, I make it home from work before I would even punch out of my old job. It will be amazing to have more time to do things. I also started my marathon training this week. Boston's full so here comes Vermont City Marathon!

Cake Class 1, Part 4

This week I finished up my class at Michael's. It was a hectic week so I was stressed out, but when I got to class I had a lot of fun. We learned how to make flowers, boarders, and leaves. I even learned how to make roses! My first one was really crappy but as I kept going I began to get the hang of it. I realized that I wasn't applying enough pressure to the bag. As the photo below shows, the edges kept cracking. I still need to figure out what I need to change to make sure the edges are smooth.

Our final project allowed us to combine everything we had learned to make a beautiful cake. I brought it to work since I had been caked-out and had eaten too much fudge. It was gone shortly after lunch.

I signed up for the third class that starts next month. I'll be using fondant!! I now have some stuff to ask for for Christmas. Speaking of Christmas, I can't believe it's less than a week away. I still have quite a bit to buy still.

Cake Class 1, Part 2

Last week I went to the Wilton Cake Decorating class at Michael's. There were only 6 of us. The first night we learned how to "bake a cake" and make the frosting that we'd be using the rest of the time. Our homework was to bake a cake for next class, frost it, make enough frosting for the in-class part, and to think about what we wanted to do on our cake. I was the only one who came prepared for that last part.

We learned only how to make stars, outline & write words, and how to make dots. Pretty easy. Some people's stars looked liked gloops. I definitely have to develop the muscles in my hand. By the end of the night I felt like I owned a claw for a hand because it was stuck in the position to squeeze the frosting bag. Below is my cake. I used snowflake cookie cutters as a patterned, outlined it, and then filled it in with stars. It was snow themed, very appropriate, as I almost died on my way home. I got stuck in a white out on the interstate with just over 5 miles to go.

My snow-themed cake

I got more pratice on Friday night. It was my good friend's birthday. She and her boyfriend, as well as another fellow Miltonian came down to visit Tom and I Friday night. Luckily I still had a cake in the fridge that I was going to use for Monday's class, and I still had more frosting. I quickly put together a cake and decorated it before she came. I clearly need to practice writing, and should have spent more time evening out the frosting.

We went out to a local restaurant for dinner, Positive Pie. It's a "modern" pizza place. The cocktails are expensive, and quite small. I tried one that was not very good at all, although she enjoyed hers. I did enjoy our pizza however. The meat lover's was called 'The Carcass'. We also got a pepperoni. Very delicious.

This upcoming week is going to be hectic. Class decorating on Monday and Thursday. I have to stay late at work on Tuesday, and Wednesday I'm going to an ugly sweater Christmas party. I don't own an ugly sweater so I'll need to find one. That's on top of all of the extra Christmas shopping I need to get done, and the fudge that I have to make.... yikes!