Wilton Cake Decorating - Course 3, Class 2 & 3

As I said last week, we combined two nights of class into one longer class tonight. We began by learning how to roll out the fondant and cover our cake. This wasn't too difficult, but you do have to be careful not to roll it too thin because it will tear easily when you put it on the cake. It also took some practice to get the edges/bottom of the cake to lay flat without overlaps or bubbles.

We then worked on coloring our fondant (takes FOR.EV.ER.) by adding some gel coloring (same that we use for icing colors) and kneading it into the fondant. The bigger the piece of fondant, the longer it takes. But you can't just color it in small pieces, especially if you're using the same color for several different decorations on your cake, otherwise you may end up with different shades of fondant. After our fondant was colored, we cut strips to make the ribbons, bow, and curlicues (we were making the Fondant Package Cake). I didn't finish all of mine in class, so I brought it home and finished by adding the flower cutouts and a buttercream bead border. The cake was a Halloween funfetti that I made as Grant's birthday cake (his birthday is the 27th!). I think it turned out pretty cute. :)

We worked on the package cake for part of the time and then our instructor showed us how to finish The Fondant Rose that I mentioned last week. This was quite a lengthy process with pretty detailed directions. To sum it up quickly, you use a flower cutter and use the ball and veining tool (similar to an orange peeling stick, but one end is has a ball and one end is pointed) to make the petals curl in certain directions. Then you mold the fondant into the rose shape you want with your hands. Our instructor said that once you get the hang of it, it's not so bad. I will have to try it out this weekend and see how it goes! We'll use these for our final tiered cake on the last night of class. One thing I've already learned from fondant is that it's pretty and looks really nice, but it's time consuming! It can also dry out quickly, so you have to work quickly or keep it covered.

We then moved onto the Class 3 portion of tonight's class. We switched back to using Royal Icing to make different flowers using the Lily Nail. We learned the (l-r, top to bottom) poinsettia, easter lily, morning glory, and petunia. I embellished them with clear cake sparkles and yellow icing dots or stamens in the middle. I can't say these were my favorite to make...they were a little more difficult, but they could be pretty with practice. I only made a couple of each just to get the feel for it, plus we weren't going to be saving these for anything specific, so no need to make several. :)

We ended the night by learning how to stack our pillars for the tiered cake we'll decorate on our last night of class. Stay tuned for that in 2 weeks!