Class I

So tonight I had my first Wilton Cake Decorating class. So here it is. I have to say that in my history of making cakes, this one was the worst by far. Sure the pictures look okay, but it was horrible. I cooked this cake on Saturday and then froze it. I tried to follow the teachers instructions of after it comes out of the oven immediately take it out of the pan, and then put it into the freezer. That resulted in huge areas of the cake falling, on the bottom of the cake, not the crown. So the next cake I did this to, I waited 10 mins then took it out of the pan and then into the freezer. So that was the first problem.

The next problem was I used a combination of the teachers icing recipe and the Wilton icing recipe. What resulted was something I had never experienced before. I can't even begin to describe the consistency. She also wanted us to bring in two different consistencies of icing. One to ice the cake with, and the other to decorate with. When I brought mine in, she didn't like my consistencies, and so she wanted me to ice my cake with my more stiff icing. This resulted in a crumby mess with the cake. I kept tearing bits of the cake off, and it just wasn't working for me.

Then I was to add more sugar to my more watery icing to stiffen it up a bit. When I did this, it became too stiff, and I had a hard time working with it. Finally, I stopped listening to her, mixed more water into the icing until it was where I could work with it and then I finished decorating the cake.

She did have a few good pointers on icing the cake. She indicated that after icing the cake and letting a crust develop, there are a couple of different ways to get a pattern on the cake and it would look neat. The first one was to use a damp, clean sponge and sponge the cake. This would give it a stucco appearance. It thought it looked more like a snowball, but it was cute. The second was to take a patterned paper towel and use the cake spatula and rub the pattern into the crusty icing. Depending on the pattern, it would leave a cool impression. Then there were two ways to get the perfect smooth cake. The first involved parchment paper (not waxed paper) and after the crust forms, put the paper on the cake and use the cake spatula and smooth the icing through the paper. The second way is to run the cake spatula through really hot water, shake off the hot water, and then quickly smooth the cake sides. Clean off the spatula, run it under the hot water again to get it heated, shake off the water, and smooth the top. Repeat as necessary. However, that method makes me think there needs to be an excessive amount of icing on the cake.

Anyway, it is getting way to late for me, and it is soo past my bedtime. ;-0