And I'm a graduate!

Today was the last class of Cake Decorating Basics.  I was the only one there today, besides the teacher.  It was crazy pouring rain and thundering, and there are flash flood warnings.  Blah.  But, I sucked it up and went, and while I got drenched even with an umbrella, I am now a course 1 grad! :)

As you know, my original cake for today did not turn out :(  Buuuu!  But I made a new one, of course, using the tweaked marble cake mix recipe from pinterest.  I did it in the zebra pattern again, and this one turned out .  The filling is raspberry cream cheese butter cream with fresh blueberries - soooo good! 

For class today, we had to already have our cake frosted.  I tinted mine a light minty green and frosted away.  As per usual I over did it on trying to smooth out my frosting and I messed it up a bit, but only a little.  I'm getting a bit better!  And while it took my 45 minutes to frost my first cake, this one only took me about 20-25 minutes!  We also had to come with lots of frosting already colored.  I chose dark green for my lettering, purple and pink for my flowers, and green and pink for my borders. 

The making of the roses took quite a bit of time.  I suppose it was a good thing I was the only student there tonight because I got lots of help from the teacher with those little buggers!  I think I finally got it down pretty well - but I will have to keep practicing!!

I am bummed that I won't be able to take course 2 until September unless I try to take it at Joann's (which isn't a problem, I just don't know their schedule!)  My goal is to take all 4 courses before going back to Peru. :)

cake re-do cooling

Filled! 

Crumb coated

Frosted and written on!

Side

Finished product!

My certificate! :)

First Cake FAIL :-O

Well, I decided for my final cake for my cake decorating course 1 I would attempt to make a cake from scratch.  I went to Publix and bought all the stuff I needed (including special cake flour) and had my recipe I found on pinterest printed and ready to go.  I was so excited!

I decided to also use another idea from pinterest which was to make a zebra stripe cake - that was super simple! 

Well, I followed the instructions, the batter was delicious, and got the cake in the pan.  I then put it in the oven at 325 for an hour. 

Looks cool hey?

After an hour, I checked it, and it was not done... not even close.  I then monitered it every 5 or so minutes (I didn't want it to burn!) until it appeared to be ok (I stuck a knife in, and nothing came out on it...)  It looked a bit special, but hey, it would be covered in frosting, so it didn't matter. 

Then I took it out of the pan and put it on the cooling rack.  This is what happened:



IT COMPLETELY FELL APART!!!!!!!!

So this is what my first attempt at a "made from scratch" cake now looks like.  I will later this week or next attempt to turn it into cake balls using another recipe I found on pinterest which requires crumbled up cake.  And if that doesn't work... well... at least I got to try 2 recipes, right?

So I honestly don't know what went wrong with this cake.  Not sure if I baked it too long (but it wasn't burnt...) or too short (but it wasn't raw....) or if the recipe just wasn't good.  All I know is that I am not using that recipe again! ;)

Check back later for my re-do cake using a tweaked mix recipe that I have used for all my cakes since starting cake class! (Don't worry... it turned out!)

My first... TIERED CAKE!

So, my job today was to make a cake for the Peruvian ship that leaves tomorrow.  I have been planning this cake in my head for a while and used a plethora of ideas from pinterest all put together.  The more I decorate cakes, the more I understand why wedding cakes are so expensive, jaja.  I went to the store around 9am, and started baking around 9:30.  I finished the cake around 3. 

The cake is 2 tiers.  Tier 1 is  an 8" round red velvet cake with a butter cream cheese filling and Tier 2 is a 6" round vanilla cake with a raspberry buttercream frosting.  I used a frosting technique from pinterest called the "pastel swirl," so it is not as smooth as my other 2 cakes I made.  But, that's okay because my plan was for the cake to be "ocean-y" and the ocean is seldom smooth, right? :)

I had gotten wooden dowels from Joann's to support the upper tier, but I found on pinterest it was easier to use plastic straws!  So I used 2 straws, cut to fit the size of the cake.  So far, it's holding up! :)  I was really nervous to put the little cake onto the bigger cake.  I was pretty convinced I was going to ruin my frosting job.  But, again using a tutorial from pinterest, I managed to get that 2nd tier on there without any major catastrophes!

Once I had my cake together, I had to do some work to fix a few issues with the frosting that I had messed up, and to hide the little cake circle that the 6" cake was sitting on.  Then it was on to my favorite part... DECORATING!  I had seen on pinterest a series of cakes decorated with spirals made out of dots.  Last class, we learned how to make those dots!  So I decided I was going to use that technique and that general idea and make it into a more nautical design - the spiral turned into a wave!

It was then onto writing.  I just wrote "Buen Viaje BAP Villavisencio" and attempted to draw a little ship with a 52 on it.  The ship drawing is a bit rough, but I think that the writing was pretty good for my first attempt.

All in all I am super pleased with my first tiered cake, and I really hope the marinos aboard the BAP Villavisencio enjoy it on their way back home!

Vanilla 6" and Red Velvet 8"

I chose these flavors because the Peruvian flag is red and white.

Red velvet split and filled with a butter cream cheese filling

I chose it because ... the Peruvian flag is red and white!

Vanilla with a raspberry butter cream filling.

I chose this because... the Peruvian flag is red and white! (noticing a theme here? ;) )

Tier 1 frosted using the swirl technique.  I chose blue for 2 reasons.

1. The ocean and sky are blue (what they see when they are underway!)

and

2. The American flag is red, white, and blue!  Red and white were already covered so! :)

"Dowels" in to support the 6" cake about to be placed!

Cake is stacked and I used the dot technique I learned in class to cover up the 6" cake circle and a few little issues I had!

I then used an idea I found on pinterest and turned it nautical.  Here you can see my writing as well!

The cake is FINISHED!

Fish or cupcake...

That was the decision I had to make last week in class.  I decided to go with the fishy, though everyone else chose the cupcake.  Well, lucky for me, I got to make a 2nd cake last week, as my friend Cobie (who is taking the class with me) was unable to attend so we got together so I could catch her up on what she missed!  This time around, I chose to make the cupcake!

I used a recipe I got off Pinterest as my first attempt not to be a complete cake mix gal!  I also wanted to try out some colors as I was planning on making a fancy cake for the Peruvian ship that is currently in Jax.

Here we have the baked and cooling red, white, and blue french vanilla cake!

Filled with strawberry buttercream with fresh strawberries!

Crumb coated and awaiting its decorations!

Frosted!  I found it much more difficult to frost such a tiny cake!

Decorated!

Cobie said this was a princess cake (due to the colors!)

Class 2 - C is for CAKE YUMNUMNUMNUMMM

For class 2, we had to bring in a cake and homemade buttercream frosting along with a layer filling. I decided to go with an oreo cake (cookies and cream?) So I used Dunkin Hines dark chocolate box cake mix (I wasn't quite brave enough to try making a cake from scratch yet!), and the filling I made by using a buttercream frosting (homemade) with crushed oreos and a tsp of almond extract. DELICIOUS! For the regular buttercream frosting, I stuck with vanilla extract. 

This would be the first of many things for me. Firsts:

1. Making homemade buttercream frosting
2. Making homemade filling
3. Making a layer cake
4. Crumb coating
5. Spending 45 minutes just to frost the 8" round cake!
6. Using gel food colorings.  SUPER COOL!

I decided to send the cake in with P to his office.  It was a super tasty cake, and P said most of it was devoured before 9am!  He managed to save me a little piece and YUMMMMMM!! 

Next week is cupcakes, but I have to miss class due to a ship party.  My friend Cobie and I will get together during the week though and I will teach her what she missed last class, and she will teach me what I miss in this next class.  I also am going to make my first attempt at a layer cake for the Peruvian ship that is here visiting.  It shall be there on the day they leave so they will get a tasty treat on their trip to their next port!! :)

Here is my newest toy whipping up that dark chocolate cake.  It's no KitchenAid, but it's a Sunbeam and I love it!  It made making the cake, frosting, and filling a lot easier!

Here is my cake. It is already filled and crumb coated. I used the filling frosting as the crumb coat. This is the first time I have ever done a crumb coat - thanks to Lisa who told me to do it! I think it made frosting a bit easier :)

At the class, we frosted our cakes. It took me about 45 minutes to get my cake looking this smooth. I found a tip on pinterest that supposedly makes it a lot easier than dealing with spatulas, but I will have to try that at home and see how it works, and the cake needs to be chilled to do the "trick!" Anyhow, I was very proud of the smoothness factor of my first cake!

Finished!  Here is cake #1  The gel transfer didn't work so well on my cake because I covered it while it was supposed to be "drying" so I had to freehand the fishy a bit.  We had to choose between making a fish or making a cupcake (design) on the cake.  The other 2 peeps in my class chose to do the cupcake design.  Not to brag, butttttttt....Mine was WAY better!!!

In the class we just had to make the puffy design on the top (fish) but I thought it looked way too plain.  So I designed to use the other 2 techniques we had learned so far - stars and lines!  The borders are the lines (cut me some slack peeps!  We just started lines during this class!) and the stars are on the side.  I drew on the "seaweed" and "bubbles." 

Class 1 - C is for COOKIES yumnumnumnummmm

My first class met on Tuesday June 5.  We had a list of things to bring with us, including frosting and 6 flat cookies.  Since I most likely will never buy cookies and decorate them, I decided to try my hand at making the cookies myself!  I got a recipe off pinterest.com and bought my ingredients.  Using my little $5 handmixer, I made those cookies along with a bunch more and a welcome home cookie for P. 

Let me tell you.  They were A- MAZ-ING!  Yummmmm!  They weren't the flatest cookies ever, but for not having a rolling pin, they were acceptable.

http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2010/10/my-favorite-sugar-cookies.html

For P's welcome home cookie, I made royal icing and decorated it.  It turned out quite cute.

Here it is!  I used a decorating type I found on pinterest to keep the decorating bags clean by using plastic cling wrap.  AWESOME!

Here are my finished products from class 1.  We learned how to use the star decorating tip.  It was a bit tricky to get the stars to be even in size.

The teacher told me that my star was one of the best free hand stars she had seen, jajaja. 

I am so excited to learn more!!! :)

My new hobby... CAKE DECORATING!

This year I am back to getting a full 2.5 months of summer break.  Besides sleeping in and being lazy, I need to get my thesis done.  But all work and no play makes for a boring summer break, so I decided to get a hobby.  I've been feeling quite untalented lately.  I am not a talented artist, I am not a great singer, sewing / crocheting / knitting have never been a strong point.  I like to dance and I'm quite good still, but at the ripe old age of 30, that's not really much of a hobby anymore... especially not in Jax!  I'm an avid Spanish speaker - but again, that's not really a hobby.  I thought of trying to pick up another language - which I may still do (cough cough Bridget and Aziz ARABIC!), but I wanted something more hands-on.

Well, I was watching some baking show on TLC and I thought to myself - I wish I could decorate cakes and cupcakes like that!  Then I was talking to my friend Lisa, who has a tiny cupcake business, and she said to me - well, I could teach you OR both Michael's and Joann's have Wilton classes!

So the very next day I went to Michael's and inquired about the classes.  I ended up signed up for Cake Decorating Basics (course 1).  Lucky me, it was even half price!!!! :)  And so, my cake decorating adventures would begin.