Class Number 3 and a Road Trip

So as I’m writing this blog, I’m in the car riding back from Springfield with my sister. We had a Change of Command ceremony for my Uncle Dad. Its always fun being with family. These past few weeks have been crazy! Not only am I working my way through these courses, but I’m also moving. Add that to my sister going through finals and lots of other drama and you have one stressed out CC! Anyway, the cake for week 3 was really interesting. As I started making it, my sister came into the kitchen with her ipod. Apparently my loud music is way too much for her to hear when she is studying. (Sorry sister!) But what I did realize is how much the music motivate me. And for anyone that knows me, you know that I absolutely should not be surprised by this. It was just fun to have music blasting and be in my own little cake world.

This cake was not that different from the others as far as decorating is concerned. I am finding that I’m turning into more of a perfectionist than I had expected to be. (Which again, isn’t that surprising.) The one thing that is different about this cake is that I used almond extract instead of vanilla. Mmm! It was incredible. I think it will be my new favorite. But I have had thoughts about maybe making a coconut frosting. The dirty ice almost ripped my cake apart from the very beginning though. (For those of you that don’t know, dirty ice is the same thing as a crumb coat. It’s a VERY light coating of icing that traps the crumbs in a thin layer of icing. So that way when you put on the final coat of icing, it doesn’t have little crumbs floating around.) I did end up being smarter than the cake. I used lots of corn syrup to thin out my icing and then it didn’t rip it apart.  I have to say that this particular cake has been my favorite so far.  Even without all the decorations on it.



The actual class was a little easier than I had anticipated.  We learned how to make little faces.  Something like Mickey Mouse.  And then we moved on to the famous rose.  The foundation of the rose is not difficult at all!  However, when it came time to putting the petals on....well that was another story!  (I have been so eager to learn this that I thought it would come naturally to me.  It clearly did not!)  In the picture below, the rose in the top right corner was my first rose.  It isn't so pretty!  They did gradually get better though.



We eventually moved on to figure piping.  I didn't expect to enjoy this part.  But as my cake was slowly coming together, I felt an amazing sense of accomplishment.  Before I knew it, I had 3 clowns, a shell border and polka dots to accent the side of my cake.





Over the next few days, I practiced my roses again.  I figured that I had the icing and that I wanted to be a little better at them for the next weeks class.  They are turning out nicely!  I did attempt a few times to see what it would be like to pipe them directly on the surface of my practice board.  That didn't go over so well!  I suppose I need a little more practice in the rose department!





Well I'm off to make another cake.  This post was actually a 2 day process.  (Kinda like my cakes!)  Tonight will be my last class of Course 1.  I did sign up for the next course.  It is called "Flowers and Cake Design".  It sounds super fun!  Oh a side note....so far my pants are still fitting!  Ha ha!

Judie's Slice of Heaven

So I need to start off by saying a few different things.  First of all, my cakes take about 2 days to make them.  Not because I can't do it in one day.  I just find that it is easier on me to make the cakes and the icing and then decorate the following day.  One of these days I will have to bake, ice and decorate in one day.  But for now the two day thing works for me.  Secondly, it is so much fun to cook in someone else's kitchen.  I suppose one of the main things I like about it is that I don't have to clean it before I start baking.  (I think I just told on myself.)  This week has been really crazy and I knew that if I was going to have a cake for the Mother's Day Girl's Night that I was going to have to do it at my nanny gig.  Thankfully my step-sister has KitchenAid mixer.  (Yes, I nanny for family.  It is wonderful to see the little one so often!)  Anyway, back to the mixer.  Let me just say that it is pure, 100% heaven.  I'm not sure how I ever made anything without one.  I would love to have my very own by the time I'm making a tiered wedding cake.  But I'm not so sure that it is going to happen.  I was quite impressed at how quickly my eggs whipped up.  I like to turn my egg whites into a meringue before I mix in the rest of the other ingredients.  Overall, I went from the mix being in a box to having it in the pans in less time than it took me to clean up my mess.  Now, I know that I'm a messy baker....but still...it was wicked fast!  This was the first time that I had ever made a Red Velvet cake though.  For whatever reason, I wasn't expecting it to be as red as it was.  My fingers are still slightly stained from the mix and my icing!





I went with a different recipe for my icing.  It was a cream cheese and butter base.  And it was delightful!  I took tons of time whipping it.  (I'm starting to think that anything that has to do with baking is better when whipped.)  It was a little thicker than I had wanted so I thinned it out with some Heavy Whipping Cream.  I ended up with a delightful icing that could be used for so much more than just cakes.  I'm thinking that it would be wonderful with a fruit platter!  Since this was not a cake for class I thought it was ok to change it up.  I loaded it up with a layer of frosting, fresh strawberries and more frosting in between the layers.  I was quite concerned with the stability of the finished product.  I did run into a huge problem though.  The cake was so moist that it was sticking to my fingers.  And when I went to place the top layer, it crumbled.  So here I was in my own kitchen trying to figure out how to 'glue' the cake back together with icing.  This doesn't go over so well for a perfectionist.  Eventually, I had a dirty iced cake....



I did learn that this particular icing doesn't really crust over enough to do a lot of smoothing.  As much as I didn't want to just let it go and ignore all of the lines on the cake....I decided that I didn't want to chance the cake falling apart or getting crumbs in my icing.  I made some red-ish icing to do some decorating.  This whole process was a mess!  It didn't matter how much coloring I put in the icing, I simply couldn't get the right shade of red that I wanted.  (Mental note to self:  do some research on getting the proper dye for the shade of red that I want.)  Eventually it got close enough and I went to start on the cake.  The problem that I had at that point was that my hand was melting the icing before it even was on the cake.  Overall, it ended up looking pretty good.  The one thing that I will say is that the red icing was horrible!  I absolutely need to find another way to get red icing.  All of the coloring made the icing taste really biter!  This was not a good thing!  Judie loved the cake though and that is what makes all of the effort worth it.  Here is some pics of the final product. 

Enjoy!  And happy caking!

Cake Building

Well I waited for this day for quite some time.  I had been to the grocery store and had tons of things required to make a cake.  Not to mention a box full of fun tools to make my first homework assignment.  With it being Mother's day weekend, I decided that it would be Mom's choice....which meant chocolate cake!  (Not that I mind all that much!)  The entire kitchen was a disaster for the entire day on Sunday.

My number one lesson throughout this entire experience is that even for something as simple as a box cake, I need a KitchenAid.  Now I know what you are saying, "Carrie, you are just looking for an excuse to get a mixer."  Well you are right.  However, I was in the kitchen all afternoon, burning up my hand mixer.  I did end up buying the baking strips that I had mentioned in my last post.  And I can say that I am now a believer!  I didn't know that they would keep the edge of the pan cool enough to actually affect the way the cake bakes!  There is only one down side...you don't end up with a lot of cake to trim off.  Which means there isn't much snacking while decorating.  (However, if this caking thing pans out, I'm sure I'll need to stop tasting in order to fit in my jeans!)


While my cake was in the oven, I started the task of making my own buttercream icing.  And I was amazed at how wonderful it turned out.  Let me stress that I was beating it for about an hour.  So it just isn't possible for it to be lumpy.  Thankfully I ended up with a light and fluffy bowl of sweetness!  Which worked out well when I was coloring it as well!



Icing the cake went fairly well.  I think that I expected it to be a lot easier than it actually was. I started with the filling between my layers.  And the key to that was that I should have had more icing!  I ended up with crumbs in my icing.  But I made up for it with a crumb coating.  I know that I am a perfectionist...but it really came out when I was putting the final icing on the cake.  It wasn't perfect...but fairly close.


Class was alright.  My practice frosting was the wrong consistency.  (Which reminds me...my 'Madea' teacher calls it consistence.)  Because of this I was a few minutes behind the rest of the class for a majority of the whole night.  By the end of the class I had learned how to make the rainbow for my cake and had practiced handwriting.  The key is to have the right consistency icing and to relax!  All in all, I am very pleased with the way my cake turned out.  It looked wonderful and tasted just as great!  I need to read ahead and find out what we will be doing next week.  Until then, here is a few pics of my final project!

My First Class

So last night was my first session in the Wilton's Cake Decorating 1 class. I suppose that I should start by saying that I have been doing a lot of studying and research prior to signing up. Its amazing to think how much you can learn about the whole process just by looking online. You know the internet is a wonderful thing! :) Over the course of the weekend, I spent plenty of time at Michael's trying to decide what materials I absolutely needed in order to get through my first class. I ended up getting what appears to be a tackle box....only it is filled with caking goodies! As well as a set of Wilton's round cake pans. I might have been getting a little ahead of myself though. I keep thinking of tiered cakes! Mmm!

So on to the class. I was amazed that there was a variety of ages in my course. In fact there is a young girl that is taking the course with her Grandma. (I can't help but think of how much my Grandmother would have loved to take this class with me.) I have a teacher and an assistant. My teacher reminds me of Madea...just by listening to her say the word "spatchula". In fact, it sounds a lot like spatchuler. :) It makes me laugh just thinking about it. The teacher's assistant is actually a lady that reminds me of my Grandmother. She has been caking for longer than Wilton's has been offering the classes.

We went over a lot of basic information. Things like tools, pans and all of the other accessories that Wilton's offers. I must say though that I feel like I need to buy the Bake Even Cake Strips. After seeing a cake made with them and one without.....I'm completely sold. We did get the opportunity to play with some different consistency frostings. I found that I was taking notes as to what the icing looked like. We went over the recipe for the Buttercream Icing and I believe that I have already decided to make my own recipe. I just can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that they would add water to icing. It seems like it should be half and half....or maybe even heavy cream. So I will be working on a new recipe for Buttercream this weekend.

It was interesting to see someone level a cake with an actual leveler. I always cheat and use dental floss. So I am curious to see what happens differently when using the leveler instead. Not too long before the class was over, we moved on to actually icing the cake. They make it look so easy. That being said, I haven't tried it yet...so it could very well be simple. We also went over some basic decorating tips and proper bag positioning.

My homework for the week is to bring in an 8" completely iced cake. I believe that my sister has already put a bid in for what kind of cake she wants. So I'm guessing that it is going to be a Red Velvet cake. For the classes, I will be cheating and using a box cake mix. (I'm thinking that once I get my KitchenAid that I will be making them all from scratch.) The funny thing is that people are already texting me asking if they can eat my homework. I made the comment to one of my 'awesome' cousins that she was requesting to be the "dog that ate my homework". I'm beginning to think that I should make people bark before they eat my cakes. :) haha Then again, that is probably pretty mean.

I will post pictures as I work on my first assignment! Happy caking!