So it’s the final week and that means final project cakes. The hardest thing about the final cake is picking the design. Sure, Wilton gives you some ideas, but there are a lot of different things you have to keep in mind.
Since
we still had 2 techniques to learn, we were going to have approximately 90
minutes to finish the cake. If you ever
watch any of the Food Network cake challenges, you know the biggest weakness of
the majority of the designers is they plan too big of a design to complete in the time they are given. That is one thing I have in common with
them. The things I don’t have in
common? Insane cake decorating
talent.
Er,
okay, mediocre cake decorating talent.
Sigh…
basic cake decorating talent
Another
thing to consider is what flowers you already have made and how much time you’ll
have to make new ones. I had a lot of a
specific type of flower already made and I had royal icing already made in 3
colors. I think it’s pretty apparent the
direction I went.
Finally,
our instructor wanted us to utilize the basketweave technique that we were
learning in the final class. We got to
decide how much we wanted to do on our cake, but we still had to figure it in
somewhere.
Oh,
I almost forgot… here’s what we covered this week from the class lesson plan, as
listed on Wilton’s website, in the RED BOLD text:
- Basic Principles of Cake Design
- Gum Paste and Fondant 101
- Button Flower
- Pansy
- Making Royal Icing
- Making a Parchment Bag
- Flower Nail
- Rose Base, Rose Center
- Apple Blossom, Primrose
- Rosebud
- Wilton Rose
- Daffodil
- Violet
- Using the Lily Nail, Lily
- Guidelines for Flower Arrangments
- Floral Cake Design
- Making Stems
- Reverse Shell
- Basketweave
Bad
thing about the basketweave – it’s done with buttercream. That being said, I pulled off one of my best
batches of buttercream icing EVER.
The Reverse Shell is
important since it is often used to line the top of the basketweave. It isn’t difficult, but it has to kind of
come to you. Once you get it, you can do
it all day long. Until then, it is
frustrating.
The Basketweave
technique is not difficult, but it takes a lot of concentration - concentration
and pre-planning because you have to have an even number of vertical stripes
spaced evenly apart. I lost it more than
once and had to gingerly scrape off icing, but I hid it well.
So
are you wondering what my final cake looks like?
 |
| ©
You Want Me to Cook? Final Cake |
Not
bad, huh? I decided to put the
basketweave around the side of the cake.
I lost concentration a couple of times, but then I got into the zone and
finished it off. Around the border of
the top of the basketweave, I did the reverse shell to clean up my edges.
 |
| ©
You Want Me to Cook? If you're wondering... yes, I found the part of the cake that looked the best. Nope, no mistakes here, but please don't turn the cake around. |
I
had plenty of Apple Blossoms and
several Primroses from
practice. So, I decided to fill the top
of the cake with primroses filling in the holes with a couple of apple blossoms
and let them trail down the side of the cake in vines.
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| © You Want Me to Cook? |
I
have no idea if apple blossoms can appear on vines in nature.
Just checked… nope.
Okay we’ll do a little suspension of
disbelief, m’kay?
I
tried to put some leaves around the flowers on the top of the cake, but for
some reason I couldn’t get the royal icing to release from the decorating
tip. It could be that I whipped the
royal icing the day before to “freshen” it up, but neglected to do it before
leaving for class.
 |
| © You Want Me to Cook? |
My
bad.
So
I am going to pat myself on the back a little bit and say that I was REALLY
proud of this cake. It didn’t taste too
bad either – lemon cake with poppyseed filling.
I
also got to snap some pictures of a couple classmate’s cakes. The first is from someone I met in my first
cake class.
She
does great work!
This
other cake was the clear winner of talent in the class.
She
came in with approximately 100 flowers.
I was impressed… and very jealous.
Her design was gorgeous not only from the top but also from the side. Amazing. I did have a detail of the top of the cake, but somehow it disappeared. Bummer.
I
finish my Gum Paste and Fondant class
next week (check up on my progress in that class here and here) and
then I start the final class in the series Advanced Gum Paste Flowers the
following Tuesday. I’m excited to be
done, but also sad. I’ve had A LOT of
fun in these classes.
Stay
tuned because I’ll have what I learned in my third Gum Paste and Fondant class
up soon and then next week is my final cake.
Wish
me luck and until then… happy baking!
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