{Wilton Cake Decorating Class}

Somewhere in the beginning of 2011 I got the hankering to try and make cakes and cupcakes. I blame it on watching too much "Cake Boss" on Netflix. Over the next several weeks and with several Michael's 40% off coupons in hand, I made an attempt at decorating. I bought this Wilton book, that I have LOVED. My favorite part is where is tells you how many cups of batter you need for what sizes of cake pans. Genius. Saved my life. And I still religiously use the buttercream recipe in here. It is magical.


After flipping through the book and feeling pretty confident about my caking-abilities (HA), I took a stab at making my little sister a BYU Cougars-inspired cake for her birthday. You know when you picture something you are going to bake/decorate in your head and it comes out totally different? Or, in my case, totally ridiculous?? I pictured navy frosting (which I could NOT get it to turn navy) and smooth frosting (which I could NOT get it to do, either). Yikes. And why on earth did I try and do a two-layer cake when I had no idea what I was doing? Although ugly, at least it was tasty.

(I thought about lettering BYU, but "A" for Andi was shorter and easier)

And let's not forget the unintentionally-Dr. Seuss-looking cake for my baby's first birthday-photo-shoot-cake-smash. Once again, SOOOOO not what I was invisioning while I was making it. So crooked and so wrong in so many ways :)



It's a good thing it's purpose in life was to be smashed for the photo shoot. Bye bye creepy cake.



After being frustrated that I literally had a kitchen full of fun baking gadgets and no idea how to properly use them, my sister and I decided to finally sign up for a Wilton cake decorating class. We signed up for the 4-week Course 1 Decorating Basics. There was a kit to buy, plus some other things, but my shopping obsession had led me to purchase almost everything on the list already :)

Class One: Cookies. Easy, right? Ha. My cookies were not the most attractive things in the world. But I did get used to the angles of the piping bag and using tips I hadn't used before...mostly a lot of stars (#16 and #18).


Class Two: Cake with an image transfer with piping gel. I thought this little birdie would be cute. And I was sort-of pleased with it until I realized the bird was off center, I had some chocolate cake peeking through my blue frosting, and the cake was WAY off center on the cake round. Oh well...I ate it anyway. It was wicked good. And I got to finally pull a Buddy Valastro and "dirty ice" a cake. Highlight.


Class Three: Cupcakes. A little more my scene. Got to try some fun flowers and get lots of practice. I loved the rosettes (the top middle one).



Class Four: Final Cake. We learned these ribbon flowers and I LOVED doing them!! They are my favorite flower. Mine turned out with the tops of the petals not as smooth as I was hoping, but I was somewhat proud of my little cake. My husband took it to work and all his co-workers gobbled it up.

From taking that class, I came out with tons of information and tips from our great instructor. And tons of supplies to play with. Here's to hoping I improve!!