The best part about all this caking? Going to the specialty stores and browsing through fun knickknacks! Aside from ingredients, here was my loot:
Can you tell I'm gearing up for a Halloween cake. I got orange and black coloring as well as pumpkin, ghost, and bat cookie cutters. I also bought a cheap cake leveler, because I'm having a hard time using a knife to do the job.
I'm so excited for fondant!!
So we decided to try our hands at a layer cake today. We chose mocha cream for our filling.
I built a dam around the edge of stiff buttercream frosting, to hold in the mocha filling.
After making the layers, I iced the whole thing with white buttercream, and did a yellow basket weave around the sides with a rope border at the top.
Mom also did a basket weave, but topped hers with a "grass" edge.
Running out of creativity (and icing). I topped my cake as follows:
Mom trudged on and got a little bit wild (as she always does).
I think I've graduated to "Publix Cake" skill level. Impressive for one full week on the job! Still dying to play with fondant!!! Maybe that will be an upcoming post!
Best searches from last week that led to my blog:
"I couldn't stay away from the bar"
I don't think they were referring to the bar exam...
"I've become boring"
Seriously?! I've become boring?! Sorry guys... ;)
So today I hit the parchment paper with my new toys. I just wanted to play around with the different tips. While my icing was still cool (and therefore stiff), I took yet another shot at the Wilton Rose.
I think I'm getting better! Sorry the images aren't exciting. I didn't bother to dye my icing, since I'm just playing around. I've been reusing my icing and just calling it inedible. I might dye the whole pot tomorrow for images sake. ANYHOW.
I had success with these little stars (even though they aren't technically 'stars' - I was using the wrong tip). I've seen cakes iced entirely with these stars, and I'm thinking that might be the easiest way to go for now until I actually get some skillz.
And finally... I can't make a leaf to save my life.
I think it had to do with the fact that I practiced them right after doing roses, and my icing was still fairly stiff. I couldn't get the tip part... and then it just degenerated into frustrated squiggles. Who needs leaves anyhow... the flowers are what people care about!
So today, I didn't actually get any practice time in. However, I did make a run to Hobby Lobby where I racked up on some new goodies.
I bought:
Today, we took a break from cake baking to focus on practicing our techniques - namely roses and basket weaving. Oh the patience!! Again, after a few minutes, my roses became droopy. Next time, I'll mix some powdered sugar in to the mix to stiffen it up.
Since we weren't using cakes, there weren't any exciting pictures. After I was already tired of it, I went back and did a quick basket weave to take a picture - you can see how careless I got toward the end.
And mom in action:
Now that I know I can get icing onto a cake using a butter knife and ziplock, I decided it was time to make life a little easier (and more interesting). First thing this morning, mom and I headed to the cake store to buy some pastry bags, icing tips, rose nails, and yes - a huge HUGE tub of icing so that we could get right down to business. We also bought two books with pictures for inspiration.
Back home, mom got busy baking more cakes. Once cooled, I used my new spatula to slater on some icing. Oddly enough, I found the spatula much more unwieldy than the butter knife. Also, the icing was more stiff than yesterday's so I ended up with some crumbs in the icing. The final product?
Not the prettiest cake, but much more experimental. I shell piped the bottom, tried my hand at some rope around the bottom edge, an oversized version of cornelli lace, two zigzag puff leaves, and of course four alleged Wilton Roses.
OMG those roses!!! Well, I guess the main problem was that the icing was getting hot in my hands, so it became more fluid (and messy), and then a droopy mess to work with. I haven't got the knack of it yet. For the first several attempts I had my tip upside down... by the time I realized and flipped it, the icing was getting runny. The four above were the best I could pull off.
Mom also tried her hand at some roses.
She wouldn't claim title to her masterpiece, instead attributing it to Mr. Van Gogh. It may not be a looker, but I'd call that a vast improvement from Day 1, no?
