Day 11-What a Process

I woke up to dried gum paste flowers that had (much to my excitement) maintained their shape. I decided that I would try to make a chocolate cake from scratch today. I had to make one emergency trip to the store while my cocoa powder, oil, and butter waited patiently next to a stove burner because I didn't think that using expired buttermilk seemed like the best idea. The cake smelled a little like pumpkin bread once it got into the oven because the recipe called for cinnamon, which also made my whole apartment smell great for the rest of the day.

I decided to make a layered cake because my online class lesson was on wedding cakes. I learned that the current trend is to have different patterns on different layers of the cake, and that couples are opting for non-traditional colors and patterns.

After the cakes cooled, I trimmed and torted the layers to make them stronger so that they could hold up against the weight of the fondant and the top tier. The homemade cake was definitely more sturdy than box mixes, and it was much easier to decorate.

I finished my Calla Lilies today by adding centers to them and sprinkling them with what might have been too much luster dust. Luster dust or not, they were able to hide the green food stain I accidentally got on one of the cake corners.

This is the first tiered cake I have made, so I hope that my straw supports and royal icing hold it together.

Day 10-Gum Paste Flowers

Today marked my first attempt at gum paste flowers. Though I set out with the ambitious goal of star gazer lilies, I currently have seven Calla Lilies drying on paper cones in the kitchen. Tomorrow, I have to royal icing glue the center of the flowers into the outer petals, as well as paint them with food coloring and a luster dust. I'm hoping to master the plumeria flowers and Star Gazers tomorrow.

Making the Calla Lilies was quite and adventure. Because I didn't actually have paper cones when I started making them, they spent a little time propped up on a stick and a rolling pin, held up by the cornstarch. Actually, hanging from the end of the rolling pin seemed to help them gain a more realistic shape. However, it did impede the use of the cornstarch.

Hopefully, my lilies will still be intact a) in the morning and b) after I paint them

Day 9-Rolled Buttercream

Today I used rolled buttercream to decorate a chocolate cake. Instead of the normal buttercream that you spread with a spatula, rolled buttercream handles and looks like fondant. However, it supposedly tastes better. I found it both easier and more difficult to work with than the fondant I have already used. I had a tricky time covering the cake with it while avoiding tears, but the tears were easier to patch than fondant tears.

Somewhere between coloring the buttercream and cutting out the shapes, I realized my cake looks a little bit like, well, Barney. I had pictured more of a mint color with lavender instead of a dinasour cake. When I voiced these concerns to my roommate, Sara's response was "well, I think Barney is actually a little bit darker purple." So my pale Barney cake is not the most beautiful creation ever, but I did discover a new icing.

Day 8-Royal Messes

So today I tried to figure out what royal icing does besides act as a glue to stick other decorations on cakes or to decorate fancy cookies. I decided to make shapes on wax paper and use them as toppers on some cupcakes. After trying to figure out the different consistencies, I attempted (key word) to make some shapes to dry overnight to be used as decorations. I think my icing consistencies may have been a little off because the flooding technique didn't quite flood. Also, they don't look as lovely as they did in my mind. However, I am letting them sit overnight and will hopefully be able to take them off the wax paper and use them on my cupcakes.

One good thing about the royal icing is that it will allow me to attach gum paste flowers to cakes. I can't wait until I learn to make the realistic looking gum paste flowers, so the royal icing technique will be useful.

Day 7-More Buttercream

Today, I continued my adventures with buttercream. I found an article online describing how to make buttercream look almost as smooth as fondant without making a rolled buttercream icing, so I decided to try it to try it on a cake that I made for a raffle at the Men's Wofford vs. Davidson basketball game. To make the icing smooth, I iced the cake and then refrigerated it for a few hours. When I took the cake out of the refrigerator, I dipped a spatula in hot water, dried it, and then lightly made a stroke with it across the cake. I re-dipped and dried the spatula inbetween every stroke. While the resulting product was not quite as smooth as fondant, it was definitely much smoother than other buttercream cakes I have made.


I finished the cake with brown swirls and brown, white and robin's egg blue flowers; the color scheme was the same one I used during the two previous days becuase a)I really love that color blue and brown and b)I was trying to use all the fondant I had already made and colored. However, even I have gotten a little tired of this color scheme and promise to try something new on my next cake.

Day 6-Buttercream

Today, my assignment was to practice using butter cream. After getting attached to the colors I used yesterday, I stayed with the same color scheme and also used the opportunity to get more practice with fondant flowers. Between all the colors I used and the cupcakes I decorated, I used an entire box of butter. I tried not to think too much about that as I worked on my cupcakes.

Because I have used butter cream several times already, I didn't have too difficult of a time today. However, the icing was a little too thin and soft and was a little droopy. I probably should have thickened it with a little more sugar, or turned down the heat in our apartment. For my next butter cream adventure, I am planning on trying rolled butter cream. I am hoping that it will handle like fondant, but taste better.

Day 5-Marshmallows and Crisco

While fondant makes beautiful cakes, it does not boast a reputation of deliciousness. Therefore, I tried to make my own fondant because I though it might taste better if it was fresh rather than from a box. I made a marshmallow fondant which involved melting marshmallows in a double broiler and kneading it together with two pounds of powdered sugar. I followed the fondant recipe precisely, so I found myself wrist deep in Crisco. Crisco covered the counter top, my hands, the fondant. It took over. The really satisfyingly gross part was when I had to keep dipping my sugary-marshamallowy-Criscoey hands into the Crisco to keep the fondant from sticking. The grease piled on so thick that I had to scrub my hands with a sponge to get off all the grease when I was finished.

However, the grease paid off, and I wound up with a legitimate chunk of fondant. While covering the cake, I struggled with preventing little tears in the fondant. I'm not sure if it was too soft or too moist (maybe too much Crisco?) or even too dry (doubt it). After covering the cake, I practiced making fondant decorations by cutting out little flowers and drying them in little shaping cups. The shaping cups are supposed to maintain the curved shape of the petals while the fondant dries. However, since my fondant was so soft, I'm not sure what "dry" means, so I'll have to check the petals in the morning to see if they fell.

Contrary to my cherished belief that making food fresh at home almost always yields a tastier product than buying something from the store, I'm actually not sure that making the fondant myself was worth it. The taste was not significantly different than the boxed fondant, and it took a lot of time (and Crisco) to make. Also, the store bought fondant's texture proved to be sturdier.