More Cakes

I'm a little behind on posting these, but I'm going to cheat and post date them. Sunday morning I made Banana Bread with Coconut and Toasted Pecans from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook which I just got. It turned out very well.



Then in the afternoon I made the icing for Chocolate Layer Cake with Caramel Ganache from Rose's Heavenly Cakes, but I accidentally got out the amount of butter for the cake rather than the icing. I ended up fixing the icing later by adding some powdered sugar so it was kinda a cross between the ganache and buttercream icing. I made the cake after dinner and then tried to ice it before going to bed, but the cake kept sliding so I put it in the fridge to let it set over night. I put the remaining icing in as well, and by morning it was a little too hard, but just took a little stirring to get it to work. I did a quick design on the top and shell borders. I took the cake to work for the monthly birthday celebration, and everyone must have liked it because it was almost gone. For me, the icing needed to be more of a milk chocolate, but most everyone else I talked to loved it.

Gumpaste Flowers Bouquet

These were fun to do in class, but I don't really see myself doing them on my own at home. They just take so much time, and I'm not a big fan of the floral wires and tape. I had so many problems with the tape during the last class that I nearly gave up on trying to make an actual bouquet. I think I could see maybe doing individual flowers and putting them on skewers or spaghetti so they can be stuck directly in the cake. I do love how real they look though. Brushing the color on them was cool, and I was surprised at how little artistic ability it actually took. Now I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with them. They're sitting in a small box for now. One of the petals on my large rose already has a small piece missing so I know they won't last forever around here.

Perfect Party Cake

My mother in law's birthday was today, and I volunteered to make a birthday cake. I needed an excuse to practice my decorating skills and try out another cake recipe. I was determined to use a non-shortening buttercream icing this time. I chose Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake which is a white cake with a hint of lemon flavor. I put the coconut on the sides of the cake but left it off the top to save room for decorating. The cake itself turned out great, but the icing was a little hard to pipe with and a bit too buttery for my taste. I guess I'm used to the American buttercream with the powdered sugar and shortening. I didn't give myself quite enough time for the decorating, but I'm still pretty happy with how it turned out. The drop flowers are great when time is limited.

More Gumpaste Flowers

Today we finished putting our calla lilies together, learned how to make carnations, stephanotis (the star shaped flowers), made holly leaves, and the calyx of the rose (the green part under the flower). The stephanotis were a lot more work than they're worth. My favorites are the rose and calla lily. I can't wait to see them with color next week.

Gumpaste flowers

I was originally planning to take Wilton Course 2 in April, but because I'm having surgery on my foot next week I had to transfer to the next class in May. So, I decided to try out the gumpaste flowers class because I thought it sounded like fun. Plus, unlike the other courses I don't have to do any work prior to the class at home. For the first class we made a rose, rosebud, leaves, and the center of a calla lily. The roses will get some color added in the third class. By the end we're supposed to have a bouquet and boutonniere of gumpaste flowers.

Recent Creations

Here's a quick look at some of the things that I've made over the past couple months.

Cakes from Wilton Course 1 at All in One Bakeshop:



Yes, I did make my own birthday cake because I wanted to practice my buttercream roses:



I took the Wilton Course 3 next because it was offered next and order didn't matter. We only did 2 cakes for this one, but the flowers from the first night were pretty cool as well. We learned how to work with fondant and how to make two tier cakes. It was a lot of work, but worth it when I got to see the finished product. It sure was hard to cut into the cake at the end.



In the middle of these classes I volunteered to bring cupcakes to work for the monthly birthday celebration (like I really needed to give myself something more to do):



And, last Saturday I took a cookie class and a cupcake class. It was fun, but it definitely seems like something that would be a lot of work to do on your own and more fun with a group. I sent most of these to work with Daniel: