Cake Class - Week One

I love cake, and I have enjoyed dabbling in cake decorating for several years. My favorites are the old “cut-up” cakes like my Mom always made for my birthday. I’ve made my fair share of those, and have experimented with fondant and different cake recipes. It’s all been fun, but this year I decided I wanted to learn some of the more traditional decorating techniques.

Tonight, a friend and I went to our first Wilton cake decorating class at a local craft store. It was a lot of fun. The classroom was crowded, but the group was engaged and friendly and the two hours flew by.

Probably my favorite part of tonight’s class were the tips and tricks that the instructor gave us for baking a better cake. Simple things like, “Use shortening rather than butter in your butter cream frosting – especially in the summer time.” This one might have saved me a lot of grief last year on Will’s first birthday. The cake tasted great, but got very melty very quickly.

So at the end of our first two hours, this is what I ended up with…. Lovely, right?
Ha! Of course I’m kidding. The above image comes from Wilton.com, and was most assuredly not made by me (or probably by anyone else with only one class under his/her belt).

This was the actual result of my first class. There were six cookies actually, but this one gives you the general idea. Tonight was all about getting introduced to using the tips (the #18 star in particular).

We’ll branch out in the coming weeks to use more tips and techniques. I’m very excited to eat more cakes… er, no. I mean I’m very excited to DECORATE some more cakes! I'll be sure to keep you posted as the class goes by.