My First Tiered Cake

Well, Course 3 has now ended and I am on a cake decorating class hiatus until Michael's will offer Course 4, which I am told will most likely be sometime this summer. Course 3 however, did not go out without a bang. For our final project, we had to make a tiered cake, basically a small wedding cake. Let me just preface this by saying, I now understand why wedding cakes cost so much money, they are so very time consuming!

 I spent 15 hours on this cake, and it wasn't even that big! The top tier is two 6 inch rounds, which I made with a delicious vanilla cake recipe, and then torted and filled with my own creation of raspberry buttercream. The bottom tier is two 9 inch rounds, which I made a dark chocolate marble cake, and torted and filled with a dark chocolate frosting. The white frosting you see seeping out the sides is a bit of regular vanilla buttercream that is used as a "wall" to separate the filling from the outside frosting and also keeps the filling from seeping out the sides of the cake.

 The thing that took the most time was the flowers. Fondant roses are a lot of work, each one takes at least 15-20 minutes to do. The Easter Lilies weren't as bad, it took me about 2.5 hours to do, they are made of royal icing, which I already had some royal icing made up and only had to rebeat it to consistency to make the flowers. The border is a ruffle border, which I had some trouble learning how to do, but in the end I really love the way it looks! Enjoy, I know I loved my 2 slices of cake Friday afternoon!

My First Fondant Cake

This week in Course 3 we learned how to work with fondant. I admit, prior to yesterday I was very nervous to do anything involving fondant. I also thought it would taste bad. I'm glad to say I was wrong on both counts. I took the easy way out and used the premade fondant from Wilton that I purchased at Michael's, but I was pleasantly surprised with the tiny taste I had, it was pretty marshmallow tasting and still fairly sweet. Working with the fondant was much easier as well, the trick is working it enough so that it become pliable.

This was probably my second favorite cake I've made, my number one favorite is still my flower basket cake, but this one was fairly easy and just in a different realm than working with buttercream. Today is my mother in law's birthday and our friend Dana's birthday. As luck would have it, Dana is staying with us this weekend as she prepares to move to D.C., so we will be cutting this cake tonight with her in celebration! Since I knew she would be with us and we'd have it as her birthday cake, I asked her what flavor she would like me to make, so the inside is my perfect red velvet with cream cheese filling. I can't wait to get a taste of all of it together tonight!

My First Paid Cake Order

This week I was approached by the Mess Treasurer in Tony's office and asked if I would be willing to make a cake for their usual quarter birthday celebration. I, of course said yes! I love making my cakes, and to get paid for making one is even better! So for $20, I made my usual 9 inch layer cake in my usual yellow cake recipe, and did a nice rosette border and piped on some balloons, stars, and wrote out "Happy Birthday." I'm not as happy with this cake as I should be I guess. I think my piping of "Birthday" was off, the B was too big and then it's too smooshed at the end, plus I overdid it with the stars on the side of the cake. I tried to top it off with some colorful nonpareils, but since the icing had already hardened they didn't stick and just ended up getting stuck along the border. Overall though, I guess it came out okay, I am just highly critical of my work at this point. I know it will still taste good, and it looks bright and colorful and most of the work is pretty good, I just want it to look more professional I guess. So hopefully with a little more practice my next paid cake order will be even better!

My Prettiest Cake Yet!

Last night was the last class of Course 2, and so it was time to do our grand finale cake. I am so happy with the way it turned out. It was definitely difficult to make all the sugar flowers over the last few weeks, some were easier to make than others. Overall I am very happy with the way it turned out! Take a look:

 

  

  

 

When I showed hubby my cake, he immediately told me it wasn't going to be big enough for everyone at work, so I decided to make a dozen cupcakes to send along too, and of course they needed to be pretty as well, so I decided to use up the rest of my royal icing in the fridge after beating it back to the right consistency, I whipped out some more violets and apple blossoms. I wanted to use up the icing anyway, and I needed more flowers for part of mother in law's birthday present in the next couple weeks. So an hour and 150 flowers later all my icing was used up. I didn't have a chance to pipe on the little yellow dots though, so the cupcakes look more like cartoon flowers and definitely girlie cupcakes. I think they would be super cute for a little girl's birthday party myself, or at least something I would have loved to have for my birthday party as a little girl. For both the cake and the cupcakes I used my go to Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake recipe and the usual Wilton Buttercream frosting. I think both turned out splendid, if I do say so myself!

 

Pretty Cupcakes

Just wanted to share my pretty cupcakes I made on Sunday to take to the Superbowl party we went to. I used my go to chocolate cake recipe and my usual Wilton buttercream recipe, only I halved both since I only wanted to make 12 cupcakes. Then I piped on the frosting and decorated with some sprinkles and voila! Pretty cupcakes!

 

My Third Pretty Cake: Roses and Sweet Peas

This was the final week of Course 1, tear, but don't fret, I've already signed up for Course 2 which begins February 11th! This week we learned how to make Wilton roses and sweet peas, along with bows, leaves and vines. I am pleased to say, I think this was my best cake yet! I decided to make a yellow cake from scratch and filled it with the same cream cheese frosting I used last week with the red velvet because I had a ton left over in a Tupperware in the fridge and it was just so darn tempting that I kept digging into it at random times during the week, so I needed to use it up so I would stop eating it all. The cake I am sad to report was not as moist and delicious as I thought it would be. I was really disappointed. I mean it still tasted good, but not as good as let's say Duncan Hines Butter Recipe Golden is. I got the recipe from Smittenkitchen.com. Here it is:

Yellow Cake From Scratch (from smittenkitchen.com)
Ingredients:
4 cups plus 2 tablespoons cake flour (not self-rising)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups buttermilk, well-shaken (I used my trick from last week, 2 TBSP lemon juice and just under 2 cups skim milk)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch round cake pans and line with circles of parchment paper, then butter parchment. (Alternately, you can use a cooking spray, either with just butter or butter and flour to speed this process up.) I sprayed mine with Pam for Baking and didn't use the parchment.
 
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well and scraping down the bowl after each addition. At low speed, beat in buttermilk until just combined (mixture will look curdled). Add flour mixture in three batches, mixing until each addition is just Incorporated.

Spread batter evenly in cake pan, then rap pan on counter several times to eliminate air bubbles. Bake until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then run a knife around edge of pan. Invert onto rack and discard parchment, then cool completely, about 1 hour. Then frost.

And now the good stuff! Enjoy! 

Second Pretty Cake

This week was week 3 of Wilton Course 1, this week we learned figure piping and drop flowers and the shell border. I decided this week that I wanted to make a red velvet cake from scratch with a cream cheese filling. I wanted to frost the cake in the cream cheese frosting too, but it ended up way too thin to hold up to the decorating I knew I would be doing, so I ended up making a regular batch of the Wilton buttercream to frost the outside of the cake with like usual. I had never made a red velvet cake before, and found it surprisingly easy to make and it came out wonderful!

 

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Filling (from cdkitchen.com)

Ingredients:
For the cake:
2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
2 teaspoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk (I subbed 1 TBSP lemon juice and just under 1 cup of skim milk (put the lemon juice in a liquid measuring cup and then add the milk until it gets to the 1 cup line) and let it set out for about 5-10 minutes before it was ready)
2 ounces red food coloring (2 full bottles of red food coloring)
1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla

For the Frosting:
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup unsalted butter or margarine, softened (I used 1/2 cup vegetable shortening, I used Crisco)
1 pound box confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

For the cake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 2 (9-inch) cake pans (I used Pam for Baking, makes it a lot easier!). In a medium bowl or on a piece of waxed paper, sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt; set aside. In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter. Beat in eggs one at a time.

Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk. Beat in food coloring and vinegar, then add vanilla. Spread the batter evenly in the pans. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Turn out onto a rack to cool.

For the frosting: In a large bowl, cream the cream cheese and butter. Beat in confectioners sugar until fluffy. Beat in vanilla Use frosting to fill and ice cake (or just fill like I did).

It was so delicious, at least the one small slice I had was delicious! And it must have been considering Tony brought me home an empty carrier after taking it to work on Friday! And now, without further ado, is my newest creation:

 

My first Pretty Cake!

I have been wanting to take the Wilton Cake Decorating Courses at Michael's for a while now, in fact I signed up in November, but the class got canceled, well it finally had enough people signed up that it began January 7th. The first week is basically just an intro, and then actual baking and decorating begins the second week. So last night was my first night getting to decorate my delicious chocolate cake. I have taken to making cakes from scratch lately instead of from a box, this time I decided to go with the Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake from the back of my Hershey's Unsweetened Cocoa Powder box. The cake tasted delicious and was quite moist. Decorating it was definitely fun, I still need to work on frosting the cake without getting crumbs in the frosting, and perfecting the consistency of the icing. But I am so looking forward to next week's class and the following three courses!

Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake:

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour (I used 1 3/4 cups plus 3 Tbsp Cake Flour)
3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost. 10-12 servings.