Cakes!!

Upon my return from SoCal I had a couple of cakes to do. The first was a birthday cake for the daughter of a friend of mine. She wanted Spongebob Squarepants. I did the Wilton Spongebob formed pan. It was lots of fun...and for the first time when I was done I thought it didn't look half bad! What do you think? I really like doing the forms over the freestyle ones on the cakes.

The second cake was for an office birthday party. I had a special request for Goofy. I found a coloring page online and did the transfer method...and a little freehand to get him looking right!

This one was fun to do as well...as I am making more cakes the basic skills are becoming tons easier and look a lot better too! I just added some goofy swirls on the top...you can't see the bottom border in this shot--but I had so much fun with it--big white stars with smaller green ones alternating around it with blue and pink dots in between! 

I'm kind of tired of cake...the eating part...but everyone else still seems to enjoy it! I'm considering trying some different fillings--which will require me to get some torting skills...I guess I'll need to learn eventually!!  

Does anyone out there have some fun cake ideas--something to shake it up a bit?

Class Cake #3: Scary Clowns!!

This week was week three of my Wilton One class. I remade all of my practice frosting using the modified directions I was given. I also did this with the decorator frosting to be used on the cake. After last week's sliding kitty fiasco, I left the cake frosting (the pink) the way I would typically make buttercream.

As I began doing my practise flowers, I realised I was in big trouble. My 'medium' icing was rapidly beginning to ooze in a very oozy fashion. The flowers turned out fine, even though they were uber soft. This is why we call it practise, right?

Next it was onto the 'firm' icing. Once again soft and oozy. I was disheartened. My instructor kindly said that I should stick to the original as much as possible to achieve the three necessary consistencies for proper cake decorating rather than using the modified instructions given. This, I will do. Sadly, it means reworking the practice icing again--what a waste.

Sadly, as I was creating my clowns for the top of my cake...they just shrank. :( I had hoped to make one guy with his legs hanging over the edge. No joy. The guy with the red collar started out almost lying down--the frosting was too soft! Thankfully with a refrigerator and a wee bit of help, I was able to set him upright. Thankfully the frosting consistency didn't effect the flavor at all-the cake was pretty yummy!

I did have a chance to practice making the famous Wilton Rose with my soft icing. Not too bad for a first go! Oddly enough...the icing is actually white, it just looks yellow in the photo.

That leads to my next cake comment: taking photos of cakes is just hard. The frosting colors are rarely true and the angles are always funny to try to have a sense of the cake in the photo.

I'm learning. I definitely haven't figured it all out, but I'm trying.

Next week: last week of the first class.
Good times! Yummy cake!!
: )