Day 3-First Cake Attempt

Today, my assignment was to practice baking and decorating my first cake. The practical lessons on the different aspects of decorating, such as icing recipes, piping and decorating techniques, and fondant techniques, are all future lessons; therefore, I relied heavily on the Wilton website for direction.

Initially, I planned a blue cake with green flowers and vines. However, my cake took on a life of its own and I wound up with a different product than planned. I decided to try fondant rather than butter cream because, well, it looks pretty on cookbook covers and I really wanted to try it. However, I still used plenty butter cream as the cake filling andl as a base layer under the fondant.

I got quite a workout kneading in the food coloring, and ended up with a robins' egg blue color. Covering the cake with fondant proved to be a simpler task than I imaged, until I tried to trim the edges. Luckily, frosting borders are a staple of cake decorating.

After smoothing the fondant, I filled a wax sheet of paper with practice flowers, rosettes, and shells. After devoting almost an entire butter cream batch to the wax paper, I clustered flowers onto my cake. I used the rosettes to hide the zig-zagged edges of my cake, and called it a day.

After cleaning the kitchen, which was quite an accomplishment becuase at one point it looked like Frosty the Snowman's powedered sugar brother had imploded by the mixer, I boxed up my cake and stored in the fridge. I keep peeking at it to check if my flower petals have wilted or if my rosettes have detatached themselves from the fondant. Hopefully, it will make it to the children's shelter intact.