My Adventures in Cake

Well my friends, it's time to talk about cake.

Not just any cake though. It's my showcase of cake decorating skills. Or maybe the lack thereof.

A few things before we start this party:

1. I am an accountant. I sit at a desk and play with numbers all day. Creativity and artistic skills are not my forte.
2. I had pretty much zero cake decorating skills prior to this class. (Follow-up note: I still have pretty limited skills now.)
3. Be nice. The first one isn't pretty. I know it's not. To be fair, it does get better.

Now, back to class! I took a six week buttercream class at The Biggest Little Cake Shoppe. The first class was to get our supplies and a basic overview of the class, so there was no actual cake involved. We learned how to mix the basic frosting recipe and thin it down to the right consistency, and our teacher showed us how to frost the cake.

Class 2 is where things got interesting. We brought our cakes in unfrosted and leveled it, filled it, frosted it, and smoothed it. Then we learned dots, stars, and a little zig-zag border.

So, mine was not all that smooth. It was rather crummy, in both the covered in crumbs and kinda crappy way. Large portions of the cake had stuck to the pan when I tried to get it out, so the fact that it's as round as it is here is actually pretty amazing. There was an awful lot of frosting re-creation.

FYI: Mo is the nickname of my pregnant manager's unborn kid. When you only have pink food coloring and limited creativity, that's all that comes to you.

Check out the crackage and my totally uneven star border! That's talent baby.

That's right friends. This blog isn't always pretty. Sometimes you have to take a little of the ugly in between all those fabulous cookies I serve you.

Moving on: Class 3! We learned how to write on our practice boards.

A little frosting shout-out to my beloved blog.

We also learned how to stamp with cookie-cutters and then fill it with stars. We learned a couple of other borders, but I went with the star border.

I had a much better cake base this time. It was almost completely round!

I went with the tulip outline and star filling. I'm quite pleased with this cake!

I'm also quite pleased with this happy yellow color!

And then we get to Class 4. I have no pictures of this sad cake. I wouldn't let the Resident Taste Tester eat it. In fact, I wouldn't even let the Stead Board of Taste Testers eat it.

Now before you judge me, I made that cake on April 15th. Yeah, that April 15th. I was working like crazy and threw together a crappy little cake that didn't rise in the oven. And I was so tired at class that I just didn't care. Plus, I could not get the hang of rosebuds and sweet peas. So it was an ugly little cake that you'll never get to see. You'll live.

Unfortunately, I missed Class 5, which I was really sad about since I missed basket weaving. I know, distressing. But I had the BAP Spring Banquet where I got an award for my CPA exam score. Fair trade-off.

But now we get to Class 6, our final. I know this has been long, but you have to check out my masterpiece! We learned how to make roses! After my frustrations with sweet peas and rosebuds, I was really nervous about the roses. But they ended up being much easier than I expected. I still need some practice, but they were pretty darn good for a first try.

Semi-blurry shot of my rose garden. Not too shabby, huh?

Per the Quantity Control Expert: "You could sell this for money if I wasn't about to eat it."

So overall, I enjoyed my cake class. Yeah, I still need a lot of practice and fine-tuning, but it was tons of fun and gave me a good stress reliever for the end of busy season. I'm signed up for the royal icing flower class starting next week, so be ready for that excitement!!