Do you like cake? (manda)

These are a couple of birthday cakes that I did before starting my series of cake decorating courses. They were fun to try and make on my own with very little direction. The butterfly cake I made from shaping a 9x13 cake and piping stars to create the colors on the wings. The antennae is made from licorice.

The Star Wars clone trooper cake idea I got from doing a Google search for star wars cakes. Someone had done a similar idea with fondant. I used a paper mask and traced out the pattern on the cake then outlined it and filled in the outline with piped stars. The red color was very hard to make I would suggest buying the exact color you need first or checking out Wilton's website for color mixing directions. All in all I think it turned out pretty cool and the birthday boy loved it!


For a fun summer time break for me I have been taking Cake decorating classes. I had a great friend in Charlottesville who introduced me to the idea and I have had a lot of fun experimenting with the kids birthday cakes over the past few years so I decided to get a few more skills and actually learn the techniques.

I have really enjoyed it. It is really a great opportunity to do something just because you have always wanted to learn how. I owe a lot to my husband who supports me in all my endeavors without complaint and watches the kids in the evening.

This picture is of my Grand Finale cake for Course 1, I start Course 2 next week. I have been taking Wilton classes at Michael's with a friend and have loved that the cost has been 1/2 off during the summer. I am hoping to use the 4th of July as another excuse to practice and am bringing a flag cake to our neighbors BBQ.

I would highly recommend this to anyone looking into learning how to decorate even if just for family events. I thought that I had some basic cake decorating skills before I started, but I was clueless.

This was my final cake for Course #1. It was an 8" by 2" cake with a icing center. The icing is butter cream. I made all of the roses. Some people really hate trying to do these, but I seem to have great luck with my frosting consistency.

This is my completed Cake for Course 2. It was really fun learning to make all the different flowers and trying techniques I never even know you could do. I am contemplating going into a little side business. What do you think? I have one course left. I can hardly wait to get going.
All of the flowers are made out of Royal Icing and the birds are made with color flow. This took a great deal more time and skill but I think it is very pretty. The cake itself is a 6" x 2" oval pan set. The cake is frosted with a basket weave pattern in butter cream icing. - My only word of caution on this one is that cake pans that are deep have to cook longer. I had trouble with mine not going long enough and the cake was somewhat crooked.
I took all of Course #3 but the last class, because of another obligation. So for my last cake I got to be more creative. I learned how to work with fondant and learned how to stack cakes. The Wilton Course #3 cake looks more like a wedding cake.

I finished my last cake decorating class this past week. What a blast it has been. Great thanks to my husband for putting up with a few evenings on his own with the kids and all of the extra cake and icing we have had around the house. We will probably both lose some weight after this is over. We are also both very tired of cake but I have learned a ton of great artistic culinary skills.
My final cake was supposed to be a two tired "wedding" cake with fondant roses, ruffles, and stringwork but I talked to my instructor last week and she said that as long as we incorporate the things we have learned that I could do whatever I wanted. So for a two-year old's birthday cake I went to town.
His cake is a two tiered cake on cake. The bottom cake is chocolate and white checkerboard on the inside and the top is marbled. The road and the checkered flag top is fondant as well as the "Radiator Springs" desert like background on the bottom layer. All of the other accents were piped on except for of course the cars. I am really happy with how it all came together and I am sending my friend with pictures to show my class instructor. However, unless it is for someone outside of our family I am not making any more cake for awhile.

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