My Wilton Portfolio – Chapter #3: Gerbera Daisy Cupcakes

I love making Gerbera Daisies!  I remember the first time I made them in class.  I thought it almost looked too cartoonish to be taken seriously as a floral decoration.  Turns out it wasn’t the flower or the technique.  It was my complete inexperience at making this flower.  Now it is one of my favorites.  So much so that Chapter #3 was originally supposed to be another project.  I couldn’t wait for this one and skipped ahead.
 

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Gerbera Daisy Cupcakes

My Wilton Portfolio – Chapter #2: Floral Finish and Rosebud Boutonnieres

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You’re probably thinking I abandoned my Wilton Portfolio Project with only the first chapter.  Not so!  I just haven’t written about it, which is silly since this is a blog and it depends on my actually writing stuff after I’ve made it and decorated it.

This particular project is from the second class – Flowers and Cake Design.  The medium I’m working in is Gum Paste, Fondant and Royal Icing

Maple Carrot Cupcakes

Recipe made/modified June 6, 2012

For a commentary-free and printer-friendly version of it, please click here.

Original recipe from Taste of Home: Cupcake, Muffins and More and also found on their website.

It was time for me to make my second project from Wilton’s lesson manuals, this time from class number 2 - Flowers and Cake Design.  I could have made things a little easier by using a box cake mix, but I decided that I should be testing out cake recipes from scratch if I ever want to do this professionally.  I decided on one of my husband’s favorites, carrot cake, and went with this Maple Carrot Cupcake recipe.

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Maple Carrot Cupcakes

Don’t these look delicious?  I didn’t sprinkle on any of the nuts since by this time I was exhausted from making, frosting and decorating the cupcakes from my lesson manual.

My other “complaint” is that my frosting didn’t look like and wasn’t as firm as their frosting was.  I come across this a lot and haven’t yet figured out what I’m doing wrong, especially since I’m following the directions closely.

What I'm Making/Made this Week - June 25 through July 1, 2012

I have been cooking.  It's just that I'm doing it a little at a time.  One thing for sure is that our mourning process for one of our pug clean-up crew requires a lot of comfort food and sweets.

Here's what I've made so far:

Monday is Vegan Day and I found another recipe out of Vegan Diner by Julie Hasson that I wanted to make.  Then I added it to one of my favorites from the book that I already made.  I present to you Home-Style Loaf with Garlic Mashers...

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Home-Style Loaf with Garlic Mashers

Advanced Gum Paste Flowers – Class #4: Final Project

I finished this class several weeks ago and just realized that I never wrote this post!  It’s a shame too because all of my flowers pulled together nicely.  The last class is always final project day and I decided to pull together all the flowers I made (including some more I made during the last week) into bouquets.

We still had a couple of things to learn.  Here is lesson plan for this course.  The red, bold text is what we covered in the final class:

• Blossoms
• Gerber Daisies
• Sweet Peas
• Ivy Leaves
• Lily Leaves
• Briar Rose
• Stargazer Lily
• Stephanotis
• Assemble Blossoms, Leaves and Bouquets
• Using Flower Spikes

 

I was excited to get my Stargazer Lily put together.  It is one of the most grown flowers today and if I ever want to take myself seriously decorating cakes, I’m going to need to be able to make this one.

What I'm making this week: June 11 through June 17

Well I did "okay" keeping up with posting my meals as I was making them.  I didn't do so great in making everything I said I would, but I've got an excuse... I'm lazy.

Not the excuse you were expecting?  Just keeping it real.

I've got the pictures from Friday that will be going up soon, but I wanted to share what I'll be making this week.

• Monday - all recipes from Vegan Diner
• Barbecued Ribz with Rough Rider Barbecue Sauce and salad with a baked potato
• Old-Fashioned Rice Pudding
• And I'm finally going to get around to decorating my cupcakes
• Tuesday
• Breakfast: Chai Banana Bread (Cooking Light)
• Dinner: Pork Tenderloin with Mango Salsa (Cooking Light) and Spiced Peas with Cilantro and Lime (Real Simple)
• After-Dinner Drink: Watermelon Killer Chiller (Every Day with Rachael Ray)
• Dessert: Banana Cream Pie-in-a-Bowl (Betty Crocker)
• Wednesday
• Dinner: Pasta with Kale and Walnut Pesto (Real Simple) with Spring Lettuces and Avocado Dressing with Pistachios (Real Simple)
• Drink: Homemade Ginger Ale (All You)
• Thursday
• Breakfast: Strawberry Banana Smoothies (Food Network)
• Lunch: Garlic Ham and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (Food Network)
• Dinner: Mustard Turkey Cutlets and Orzo with Peppers and Spinach (Simple and Delicious)
• Dessert: Gerbera Daisy Cupcakes (Wilton Design)
• Friday
• Lunch: Warm Butter Lettuce Salad with Hazelnuts (Food Network)
• Appetizer: Marmalade-Glazed Asian Meatball Cups (Pillsbury)
• Dinner: Soy Shrimp with Rice Noodles (Healthy Cooking)
• Dessert: Browned Butter Bananas with Toasted Pecans (myRecipes)
• Saturday
• Breakfast: Panko-Topped Curried Eggs Breakfast Pizza (Pillsbury)
• Appetizer: Quick Pizza Rolls (Simple and Delicious)
• Dinner: Portobello Mushroom Burgers (All You) with Scalloped Potatoes with Tomatoes and Bell Peppers (Food Network)
• Dessert: Chocolate-Hazelnut-Coconut Bars (Pillsbury)
• Sunday
• Breakfast: Oatmeal Raisin Pancakes (Every Day with Rachael Ray)
• Dinner: Creamy Tomato-Stuffed Chicken  
• Dessert: Lemon Cheesecake Bars (myRecipes)

Wish me luck and I'll be checking in with you later to give you my progress.  Until then... happy cooking!

What I made: June 6, 2012

Today I was like a crazy cooking ninja.  And there was some alcohol involved.  

That may explain why my notes are a little difficult to read today.  Oh well, let's get to the food.

I had a crazy morning and afternoon so my breakfast and lunch dishes had to be rescheduled.  It was time to start dinner, but I was parched so I made myself a Pink Lemonade found in All You's July issue.

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Pink Lemonade

My Wilton Portfolio – Chapter #1

Last week, I finished my final Wilton class.  Four Classes in three months.  Sounds exhausting, but I really had a great time and I’m sad it’s over.

Now I have to figure out what to do with my newly acquired skills.  Truth is, I’ve learned a lot, but I’m by no means an expert at decorating cakes, cupcakes and cookies.  I need practice!  So what I’ve decided to do is bake and decorate my way through the lesson books.

To keep from getting bored with one medium, I’m going to alternate between each of the four class books starting with the first one – Decorating Basics.

My first chapter of this undertaking is found on page 16 of the Decorating Basics book and called Party Partners.  (P.S. You can buy the lesson manuals from Joann's Fabrics without taking the class, so if you want to follow along, but don't want to take the class, jump on-line or head over to the nearest store)  Wilton has a lot of their designs on-line, but unfortunately, there’s no picture available for this one so I’ll give you the quick run-down of what the lesson entails.

• Preparing Roll-Out Cookie and Chocolate Roll-Out Cookie Recipes and cut using a round cookie cutter.
• Decorating the Chocolate Cookies with:
• Snowflake Star
• Spiral of Stars
• Baby Carriage
• Large Star
• Daisy Flower
• Decorating the Plain Roll-Out Cookies with:
• Star Flower
• Blue Star
• Heart
• Number 1

Wilton’s Chocolate Roll-Out Cookies

Recipe modified by You Want Me to Cook? – May 19, 2012

For a commentary-free and printer-friendly version of it, please click here.

Wilton’s Chocolate Roll-Out Cookie recipe located on their website.

As I am baking and decorating my way through my Wilton Class Books, I needed a good cut out cookie recipe.  Actually, I needed a good CHOCOLATE cut-out cookie recipe.  Oddly enough, I didn’t have any in my archive of recipes, so I took the suggestion of the book (Class #1 – Decorating Basics) and went on their website for their cookie recipe.

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Chocolate Roll-Out Cookies

They are basic roll-out cookies. 

Yep, kinda boring without any decorating, but I’ll get to that in a future post.

There is no photo of these cookies on their site, so I can only go based on what I see in the book.  Although my cookies aren’t as “smooth” on top – and I wish I could figure out how to do that – they look very similar.

Just take my word for it.  Please?

Advanced Gum Paste Flowers – Class #3

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We’ve had a couple classes of making parts of flowers and leaves.  When you’re dealing with ornate flowers, they have to be made in pieces and then fully dried before assembling and detailing them.

Tonight, we pull together almost all of our flowers.  Also, we make some of the other flowers we finished prettier.

Gum Paste and Fondant – Class #4: The Final Class

Tonight was our last class and you know what that means: FINAL PROJECTS!  We still had a couple of things to cover, but the majority of the class was doing our final design.

But first… here is what we covered this night from the class lesson plan for this course:

• Gum Paste and Fondant 101
• Bow Loops
• Mum Base, Rose Base
• Carnation Base
• Assembling a Bow
• Tinting Gum Paste and Fondant
• Basic Principles of Floral Cake Design
• Calla Lily
• Rosebud and Rose
• Carnation
• Calyxes and Leaves
• Assembling the Calla Lily
• Daisy
• Mum
• Covering a Cake Board with Fondant
• Elements of Fondant Cake Design
• Creating Geometric Designs Using Cut-Outs, Overlays, and Inlays
• Eyelet, Ruffle, and Ball Borders

We had to cover our cakes with fondant and Maria taught us a couple of techniques on how to do it.  I managed to get my cake covered with only a couple of dimples… not bad for my first try.  I did have some boo-boos at the bottom, but that’s the beauty of using a border.  Hides all boo-boos quite well, thank you very much.

I practiced the different borders and decided my ruffle border looked the best.  It didn’t take me too long to get my border completed and placed on the cake, so I moved on to the design.

After a long decision making process – which included me whining a lot – I decided on a version of Wilton’s Creative Calla Lilies Cake and their Small Cake, Big Ideas Cake.  I wanted the small cluster so I could write a “Happy Birthday” message on it.  However, the small cluster on “Small Cake, Big Ideas” was too small, so I wanted to pile them the Creative Calla Lilies cake.

I also had not practiced applying small decorations to the side or cutting out and assembling letters.  I worked slow and steady and this was my end result…

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Gum Paste and Fondant – Class #3

I can’t believe there is only one class left after this!  I’m having so much fun with this class that time is just flying by.  I signed up for the final course in the series too, Advanced Gum Paste Flowers with Maria.  Of course, now I’m getting ahead of myself… let’s get back to Gum Paste and Fondant and what I learned this week.

Here is what we covered this night from the class lesson plan for this course:

• Gum Paste and Fondant 101
• Bow Loops
• Mum Base, Rose Base
• Carnation Base
• Assembling a Bow
• Tinting Gum Paste and Fondant
• Basic Principles of Floral Cake Design
• Calla Lily
• Rosebud and Rose
• Carnation
• Calyxes and Leaves
• Assembling the Calla Lily
• Daisy
• Mum
• Covering a Cake Board with Fondant
• Elements of Fondant Cake Design
• Creating Geometric Designs Using Cut-Outs, Overlays, and Inlays
• Eyelet, Ruffle, and Ball Borders

These flowers are the most difficult I’ve made to date.  It took several tries for me to get some pretty enough to photograph.  Then there’s the mum, but here I am getting ahead of myself again.

We started with Daisies.  Using the daisy cut-outs takes a lot of time to perfect.  Even with the most precise cutting, you’re going to end up with rough edges that you’ll have to clean up.  Considering you are working with gum paste, it is going to have to be done quickly.

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Gum Paste and Fondant
Daisy

Flowers and Cake Design – Class #4: The Final Class

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