Fall Adventures

The Saum Family came to visit and we stayed at Atlantic Beach for the weekend!

We visited Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia on one of the coldest days of the year, yet! We had a good time, but it's got nothing on Cedar Point. ;)

I decorated for Halloween/Fall.

Grant's B-course class volunteered at the Merci Center to help pack up clothing and food for people in need in Afghanistan.

We celebrated Halloween with friends as Mario and Princess Peach! :)

Wilton Cake Decorating - Course 3, Class 4

Tonight we made our final cake! I was really excited for this one, because it's definitely "wedding worthy" and was fun to do! First, here is one of my better fondant roses I brought to class that I had worked on over the weekend:

We also had to bring two cakes--one 10" and one 6" (meaning, I had to go buy new pans to add to my inventory!) already iced and covered in fondant. I have been super busy this week, so I didn't get the chance to cover my cakes at home. I brought them to class, covered them with fondant, and worked on the ruffle border. When I got home, I added my roses to the cake. I didn't make enough fondant roses, so I took some of the royal icing flowers we made in Class 2/3 and added them to my top layer. I also added some rosebuds I had from a previous class to fill in some gaps, along with buttercream leaves to fill in the rest of the gaps. Last I added some buttercream dots all over. The cake in our course book has small fondant flower cutouts, but I was too lazy for more fondant and used some leftover buttercream instead. :)

P.S.-The cake was the Perfect Party Cake from Dorie Greenspan's book "Baking: From My Home to Yours." It was a lemon flavored cake with a lemon flavored buttercream. The actual cake wasn't too bad (as long as you like lemon), but my buttercream did NOT turn out right. It was really thin and very buttery. I don't know what happened...I doubled the recipe, so maybe it had something to do with that. Or maybe my butter was not right. No idea, but I'm not sure I'd try it again. I should have stuck with my Wilton buttercream.

And because I figured I'm on a roll, I'm going to sign up for the next course, the final course, Fondant and Gum Paste. Using gum paste allows you to make even more intricate decorations and designs with the fondant. Should be fun!

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!

Morphed

Meet our future son and daughter:

HAHA! I found this site through another blog and had to check it out for myself. You upload a picture of 2 people and then morph it into a child. I'm pretty sure it's completely random, and I'm not sure I even see either Grant or myself in those pictures. You could probably upload any picture and it would give you a similar face. Regardless, it was still fun! I'll let you know if our kids end up looking like that someday. ;)

Wilton Cake Decorating - Course 3, Class 1

Course 3 is fondant and tiered cakes, and I'm excited to learn how to work with fondant! To start the class tonight, we reviewed all of the basic techniques we learned in Course 1 (the icing recipe, filling the bags, etc.). Since we didn't decorate a cake tonight, I don't have pictures of the decorating techniques we learned, but I'll post links to the Wilton website that shows them.

We started by learning Cornelli Lace and Sotas. Both are pretty random, but with the Lace you sort of make your own pattern/design. Sotas are the easiest thing to do...just squeeze the decorating bag and however the icing falls is your design! We also learned the Bead Border (essentially a border of dots), Brush Embroidery (using a brush to pull in some of the piped icing), Drop Strings (single, multiple, and overlapping -- which are all much easier than they look!), Ruffle Border (I found this difficult to get the spacing for the "ruffles" just right), and Ruffle Garland (same as the border, but draped around the cake like the drop strings).

We also learned the first step of the Fondant Rose. Our instructor showed us how and we are supposed to make a whole bunch ahead of time so that we can make roses for our tiered cake on the final night of class. It is basically just a teardrop shaped ball of fondant stuck on top of a toothpick.

Next week we are combining Classes 2 & 3 because our instructor has another commitment on the night we are supposed to have our 3rd class. So we will be bringing an 8" square cake already thinly iced (we're going to cover it with fondant), as well as Royal Icing to make some fancier flowers.

Wilton Cake Decorating - Course 2, Class 4

Tonight we finally got to use all of our flowers to decorate our cake. We started by learning the basketweave and rope border, which you can see on my cake in the pictures below. The cake was a strawberry cake and iced in traditional buttercream. It was also oval shaped. I'm not sure why Wilton wants you to learn an oval cake, but the pans were included in our Course 2 student kit.

The basketweave was not too difficult once I got the pattern in my head. We practiced on our practice board before actually doing it on the cake. We use a template to mark out spaces around the top of our cake, so that the basketweave "stripes" were evenly spaced. I then added the rope border and my flowers! "Ta-Da!"

Close-up of my flowers!

F-15s even did a flyover. ;)

I've also decided to sign up for the next Course, Fondant and Tiered Cakes. I've never worked with fondant, so it should be fun and interesting!

Wilton Cake Decorating - Course 2, Class 3

Tonight we learned the Victorian Rose, which is similar to the original Wilton Rose, but the petals are supposed to be slightly more curved.

We also learned the primrose and daisy, the pansy, and the daffodil (again using templates and the flower nail).

The daisy was kind of a pain to get the petals to form correctly. The concept was simple, but it was just hard to make the petals "perfect." The daffodil was fun and pretty easy, and I just think the pansy is really pretty. :)

Next week, we bring our iced cake and get to decorate it!