Week 6: Our Final Cake!

Week 6.. The Final project!!  Our final project was to decorate a 2-tier cake with a theme!  I was really glad I had a theme that didn't require flowers!  I did utilize the leaf tip quite a bit though.  Here is my final cake!

 I used the grass tip, the small round, and leaf tip to make coral.  I also used the leaf tip to make the wave border along the bottom of the small cake.

To make the fish I used no tip to make the body and then the small round to pipe on the fins.  The small round was also used for the yellow coral.

The small trees that are on an angle was my attempt at making a curved tree trunk.. A straight line on an angle is not a curve.. but hey I'm an Engineer I can only work in straight lines!

A cut out of the top tier.  I didn't have enough batter for all the layers to be banana so I had to improvise and make a small batch of chocolate for 1-6inch layer.  

Cake Decorating Week 5: Cake #4

This week we learned a few random techniques, some half flowers, swags, ribbon, lace..  The main point of the class was to practice some of the techniques we want to use on our final cake next week.  We also mixed up some of the colors we are going to use for our final cake.  This week my cake features one of the lace techniques we learned.. (I'm pretty sure I'll be using it a little next week.)  The color I used will also be on my cake next week.  This weeks cake was a mixture of orange cake and chocolate cake from a new recipe book, featuring a technique of layering the batter in the pans that is suppose to give a zebra or tiger effect.  Mine turned out slightly more marbled looking.

Cake decorating week 4: cake #3

This week we learned the basket weave and also using color (of course I would pick purple!!).  We learned two various color techniques, the first we used for flower and involved striping a color with white in the pastry bag.  Then we played with which direction the tip was to give different color effects.  Then we did another striping technique with various shades of green for our leaves.   After playing with colors and various tips, I was too lazy to change back to the basket weave tip so my cake this week did not feature it... I want to try it next week just so I can make sure I can actually make it look nice on a cake.

Here are some pictures!

Showing off my new plate....  

Cake decorating Week #3 Cake #2

It is my third week of cake decorating class and my second fully decorated cake!  This week we used the combs on the side of the cake to get the lines.  I did a shell border along the bottom and a braided shell border along the top (we learned these both in previous weeks).  This week we learned flowers!!  Ok, so I really wasn't excited about flowers to begin with... I am not a flower person... but I ended up having fun with them.. We learned a few different types and I know I need to practice this week, I am definitely not the best flower maker.  Here are some various pictures of my cake..  I also promise cake recipes are coming soon!  This cake was a yellow one bowl cake!  It was really good, much more like a typical layer cake then the brown sugar cake!

Cake Decorating Class #2- First Cake!

I really enjoy baking lately and have really been wanting to learn to decorate cakes.  I figure this way I can make some extra money making cakes for people... and this way I get my baking out and don't have to have the cake around the house.. because who would buy a cake with a slice missing??  I finally took the plunge and decided to sign up for a Cake Decorating class.  The first week we just learned about the various tools in our kit and learned how to make the butter cream frosting we'd be using to decorate our cakes. 

The second class we needed to bring 2 cakes with us thick enough to cut to into layers.  I chose a brown sugar cake recipe out of my favorite cake book Sky High. (More about the cake in a post later).  I wish I could take my camera to class to document all the steps in the process.  Here are some pictures of my final cake.  So far we've learned how to use a big star tip to make a shell border, rosettes, 2 different types of braids (one is an s-shape and the other is using a shell pattern).

The whole cake.  I learned the more I tried to make the sides and top smooth the worse I made it..

A close-up of my shell braid pattern.

My rosettes that I forgot to make sure the tails blended in.

Bottom shell border.

A  s-braid border on top, shell braid on the side, and more of the shell on the bottom

A slice of my cake so you can see my layers.  I need to learn to be more consistent with the frosting between layers.

The cake with the slices missing.