A Belated Merry Christmas

I made some Christmas cookies for family this year!
A week after our wedding, and I was experiencing decorating withdrawal, so I thought I'd make these cookies. Kind of sad really...not the cookies, the withdrawal.
When icing the trees, I did try "flooding" for the first time. It's so much neater than slapping a bit of icing on, and hoping for the best. When decorating cookies in the future, I will definitely be using this technique.
The Santa's were iced with marshmallow fondant and further decorated with royal icing.
Anyway, (a belated) Merry Christmas from me.

My Wedding Cake

When I first started this blog back in September, I mentioned that I was getting married and that I was going to make my own Wedding Cake. Well I did it.

What an epic adventure it was...baking, torting (cutting into layers), filling, ganache, icing, piping, roses and the assembly. It took me weeks to make this thing.

Here some pics of the journey:

Not only did I end up with a cake that I was proud of, I also learned a lot in the process of making it. Do not expect perfection on your 1st attempt. These things take practice. If you want a level cake then each tier needs to be level. Something I didn't really consider...note, one of the tiers in the pictures above is not flat, so my cake had a bit of a lean...I am actually not bad at this, and in time could actually be really, really good!

Roses are Red

I had my last class for the cake decorating course I have been doing today. A bit sad really cos it was so much fun! I'll definitely be going back to do the next one (probably in February 2011).

The main focus of this cake is the rose. All hand piped out of butter cream frosting/icing. These are by no means perfect, considering I have never made them before. The do look pretty awesome though...don't they?! I have to say, I never, ever imagined I would be able to create anything like this...now I know I can...well, watch out!!!

Piping Practice IV

So, this wedding is just over 3 weeks away now so I thought I'd better get into gear and practice piping on the side of a cake...before I do it for real!

I discovered that this is something I need to work on, as well as covering the cake...this one looks a bit bumpy. Mind you, if wasn't the top tier, or if it had stuff on the top, a lot of the imperfections would be covered up!

Anyway, here's a pic of my piping...

Cupcake Creativity

The Week 3 class of the Wilton's cake decorating course that I am doing was tonight. We were decorating cupcakes. It was so much fun!! I will definitely be having a go at some of these again!

Flowers and Shells



Teddy Bears




Clowns

Making the clowns was so much fun. I think they look awesome!!!

Rainbow Cake

I went to the 2nd class of a cake decorating course today. I learnt how to pipe stars , spots and wavy lines, as well as transferring an image to be filled. To demonstrate our new found skills we had to decorate a "rainbow" cake.

I am really proud of the way mine turned out!!

Buttercream Practice

Last week I started a cake decorating course (Wilton's course 1 for beginners). I feel excited every time I think about it...we didn't even "do" anything in the 1st week and I already LOVE it!!!

We did learn about covering cakes with buttercream - we need to take a cake already covered to the 2nd class so it's all set to be decorated. I thought I'd have a practice run before I do a cake to take to the class...I don't want to embarrass myself..hehe

Here is a pic of my 1st attempt at covering a cake with buttercream:

Apparently you get better with practice (like everything). While not perfect, I don't think I should be embarrassed.