Thursday, October 14, 2010

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Spring has Sprung....


Welcome Back!.. For all my readers , sorry for the delay .. i figured i would talk about this cake because its starting to be spring and those warm days are coming!
I made this cake for my Wilton class 2 final cake.
The Basics: Just a plain vanilla cake with your typical 2 eggs but instead of oil i used water.. ( try it!) it makes it soo much more moist. I baked it at 325 degrees for about 10-15 minutes longer than it says.
Using an oval shaped pan that was included in the student kit. You can buy the kit at your local craft store.
The Following Instructions for the basket weave around the cake are from Wilton website.
step 1
Using Tip 47, serrated side up, and medium consistency icing, hold the bag and tip at 45° angle at 6:00 for vertical stripes or at 3:00 (9:00) for horizontal bars. Lightly touch the surface of your cake. Squeeze out a vertical stripe of icing from top to bottom (shown ridged side up).

step 2
Squeeze out short horizontal stripes of icing across the vertical stripe starting at the top. Spacing between stripes should be the same as the width of the tip opening. Squeeze next vertical stripe over ends of horizontal stripes. Start next set of horizontal stripes by burying the tip under the first vertical stripe.

step 3
Squeeze next vertical stripe over ends of horizontal stripes. Start next set of horizontal stripes by burying the tip under the first vertical stripe. Squeeze, pulling hand back slowly and lifting tip over vertical stripe and then back down again. Repeat vertical lines then horizontal lines until you achieve basketweave effect. Each new set should fit between the previous set.

This is extremely easy and it looks great on cakes!

As for the border, I used tip 21 holding it at a 45 degree angle to make a rope around the top and bottom of the cake. The tip should be lightly touching the cake. Using steady even pressure, move the tip in a gentle sideways "S" curve. Stop pressure and pull tip away. Proceed until you have finished the border of the cake.

The Flowers:
The intricate details of the flowers are made with royal icing. Choose your colors according to your liking, the dye for the icing can be found also at your local arts and crafts store in the baking aisle. I copied these flowers off of a chart which was covered by a piece of wax paper ,using a flower nail underneath.


This is one of my favorite cakes that I made, mainly because i love the hard sugar flowers.

Hope ya'll have a wonderful weekend.
and Happy Baking!

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Daisy, my love...


This cake was made for my mother's friends birthday.

Its a store bought Pillsbury cake mix with the middle layer being golden butter vanilla( Paula Deen would be proud...) and the top and bottom layer was white cake. Resembling a daisy..

The chocolate buttercream had given me a bit of difficulty, I was told to use jello pudding in the mixture. It made it into a mousse type of consistency which was too thin for the buttercream. So instead of wasting it, I used it as the filling!..( which was absolutely delicious!!)

so i switched to just plain buttercream and blended cocoa powder by Hersheys. Which made my second batch of homemade icing perfected.

I let the icing sit overnight in the refrigerator to hard just a bit. I took it out around 4 p.m. and began to ice the cake. for the swirls at the top of the cake i use the tip 35 from Wilton . Once the cake was iced and ready to decorate. I had rolled out the white pre-made fondant from Wilton. While my sister made the smaller daisies, I worked on the larger ones. Finally, I cut out circles of yellow and dusted them with yellow luster dust which i bought at AC Moore. I let the fondant dry for about 15 minutes to let it harden yet still a little flexible. Just before I served it i placed on all the flowers.


hope who ever is reading this finds this interesting and i will definitely answer any questions you have!..


have a great thursday!