Wilton Cake Decorating: Course 2

In this course we learned to make birds using the colorflow technique and we made flowers using royal icing. In the first three classes, we made flowers that we brought home to dry. For the final class, we brought a cake crumb coated in buttercream and frosted on top.

We learned to cover the sides with the basketweave technique. This is actually quite easy once you get into a rhythm. Then we trimmed the bottom using the rope technique. I trimmed the top edge with reverse shells. Then we arranged all the flowers and the birds we made in the previous classes.

My flowers were brighter than I would have liked, but I was still happy with the final product. I would like to try making a chocolate cake with chocolate basketweave around the sides. I think I'd like to decorate the top with chocolate molded leaves and chocolate covered strawberries!

Wilton Cake Decorating: Course 1

I recently took Wilton courses 1 & 2 in cake decorating. We learned to decorate cakes using buttercream icing, royal icing, and colorflow.

Our first assignment was to bake a cake using a character pan and a star tip. I chose a purse because I wanted something with as few colors possible. This technique is easy, but it causes my hand to cramp.

Our second assignment was to learn how to make a shell border, write freehand, and pipe characters from icing. We had to make clowns. I'm not a fan of clowns so I wasn't thrilled about the assignment. Basically, the trunks, arms, and legs of the clowns were thickly piped frosting with no structural support. The heads were plastic picks.

The frosting was still wet when we left class and I had a pretty long drive home. I think I hit every pothole along the way and knew there was no way the two sitting clowns would still be upright.
When I got home we all had a good laugh because the sitting clowns had fallen down. They looked drunk. The third clown looked like he just didn't have the strength to climb to the top of the cake! I dubbed it my "Drunk Ass Clowns Cake" and everyone who sees it, loves it.

Our final class had us decorate a cake with basic buttercream roses. Making a good rose is quite a challenge, but I think I did OK.