My First Two Tier Cake!

     My Aunt Wanda had called my mother earlier this week asking if we could bring a cake to a surprise birthday party for my Nana.
Of course I said yes! She is the person that started teaching me the very basics after all. And this was my gift to her to show her how far I've come, and in order to do that...I wanted to go a "step" up.
We picked up two 6" cake pans at the store, which just proves that we've never made anything more than a one layer cake.

     For my normal cake class I don't bother with using a cake recipe from scratch, I just use a box cake since my family normally doesn't eat the entire cake anyway. So this is my first decorated cake from scratch I believe! (Whoo Hooo!!) And instead of adding water to my regular icing recipe, to make it a little richer I added milk instead to give it a formal taste.

For the cake recipe I used:
Mrs. Billett's White Cake

Ingredients:


Parchment paper                                                 3 cups cake flower

1 cup milk                                                          1 tablespoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract                           5 egg whites

1 cup butter, softened

2 cups sugar


Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350 °. Grease 3 (8-inch) round cake pans; line bottoms with parchment paper, and grease and flour paper.

2. Stir together milk and vanilla.

3. Beat butter at medium speed with a heavy-duty electric stand mixer until creamy;  gradually add sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Sift together flower and baking powder; add to butter mixture alternately with milk mixture, beginning and ending with flower mixture. Beat at a low speed just until blended after each addition.

4. Bake at 350° for 20 to 23 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes. Remove pans from wire racks; discard parchment paper. Cool completely (about 40 minutes).

5. Ice your cake using about 1 cup of icing per layer.              

This cake was so much more different to ice! And it was simply because it was so tall. I loved it though!

The cake in total took me 5 hours. Starting at 9 am in the morning and finishing at 2 pm in the afternoon.

Everyone at the family gathering said that the cake tasted wonderful, and Nana was so surprised, and she loved being able to see in person how far I've come since our first cake together and our first icing rose.

Happy Birthday, Nana!

 

-Cake Crumb Girl

 

  

Course Three: Gum Paste and Fondant: Lesson Four

A fondant cake is so much different than just icing a cake!

First you have to "dirty ice" your cake.

Then you roll out this HUGE piece of fondant.

Then you pick up your mat and make sure the purple symbol (Wilton) is in the middle of your cake.

Then you peel the Cut-N-Roll mat off.

The fondant then starts to "drip" off the cake because it's so heavy.

So you quickly have to cut off the extra with scissors.

 

Then, once you've caught up, you smooth the top down vigorously, then trim off the fondant with scissors again.

Finally, you trim right underneath the cake board.

At this point, you take a piece of the fondant, and smooth it down the sides, all the way around the cake until it's completely sealed with no air bubbles, as that will cause an issue in the end.

And finally, take the fondant roller and trim closer to the cake.

But not too close, as this will reveal the bottom of your cake and there's nothing you can do to cover it back up, except with a border. But you do not want to get to that point, do your best to avoid that.

 

Next, I created my border and attached flowers around my cake.

My Final product!!

 

My classmate, Elba has been learning so much.

She created such a gorgeous cake!

We all had to brainstorm in the class to come up with a good boarder, because she had cut too high, and a huge amount of the bottom of her cake was showing.

She had thirty Calla Lilies, so our instructor came up with a brilliant idea to line them around the bottom of her cake, and place five up top.

It's such a gorgeous idea, it could be a wedding cake!

So proud of her!

Can't wait for Course Four! (Advanced Gum Paste Flowers)

-Cake Crumb Girl

 

Course Three: Gum Paste and Fondant: Lesson three

     In this lesson, my classmate and I worked on creating daises, mums and covering a cake board in fondant. Sadly, I wasn't able to get any pictures of covering a cake board or assembling mum flowers.

All I was able to get pictures of was making daises.

First, knead and roll fondant/gum paste. Then cut out one small daisy and one large daisy.

A secret that our instructor gave us, was to roll over the plastic cutter to get a clean cut.*

*Never do this with metal cutters as this will permanently ruin your plastic roller.

Put the large one in a forming cup, and place the small one in the middle, offset.

Then roll out a small yellow circle and push it in the middle of the flower.

You can use a fondant shaping tool to create small dots in the middle to make it appear more like a daisy.

They were lots of fun and really easy to create!

 

Covering a cake board with fondant was fairly easy.

First, we piped, or brushed piping gel in a spiral on the top of the cake board.

Then rolled out fondant a little bit larger than the cake board and placed a Wilton Imprint Mat on top of the fondant and pressed really hard into the fondant with bare hands or roller, making sure that the neither the Roll-N-Cut mat or the Imprint Mat moved.

The whole thing was then flipped opposite so that the Roll-N-Cut mat was on top. That was then peeled off and the cake board was placed directly in the middle, attached by the piping gel.

The fondant was then applied just like a pie crust would be.

(Fondant Imprint Mats are also perfect for making a cute pie crust)

 

Next up, our final class for course three!

-Cake Crumb Girl

Course Three: Gum Paste and Fondant: Lesson Two

     In this lesson my classmate and I created one of the most beautiful and easy flowers to learn in gum paste and fondant, the Calla Lily.
 First, we rolled out our 50-50 gum paste and fondant mix and cut out  Calla Lily shapes.

And wrapped it around the Lily former.

And peeled up the edges.

After each one was done, it was sat face-down on the mat until partially dried.

While they dried I took out my yellow fondant and rolled it out, I cut it out with my medium circle cutter, then cut that in circle half and rolled half of it into a ball and elongated it to about an inch.

I then coated the yellow piece in gum paste and dropped it in yellow sugar.

 

The Calla Lily was a very fun and easy flower to complete!

 

Next, my classmate and I assembled our bows

Which turned out to be so adorable!

Sadly, mine broke on the way home, but  at least I know how to make it again when I want to.

 

And last, but not least, we created a gum paste rose.

Which was assembled by simply cutting out rose after rose with fondant/gum paste and layering them differently.

Each base is created on spaghetti, so it is easily broken off after created.

 

Gum paste and Fondant is so different than icing(- which seemed to be my "forte)

it requires more time and patience and lots and lots of gum paste glue.

But I'm starting to get the hang of it!

 

-Cake Crumb Girl

 

Course Three: Gum Paste and Fondant: Lesson One

     Finally, I got into cake decorating course three! Michael's Craft Store came up with a new rule that a Wilton class may not continue unless it has four people signed up at the minimum. I already had some experience with gum paste and fondant from Course two of cake decorating with Wilton.
But I would love to explain how to roll out fondant, because I don't think I've covered that yet.

Rolling Out Fondant or Gum Paste:

• Spread a think film of solid vegetable shortening on rolling surface or dust with dusting pouch.
• Knead fondant or gum paste until pliable before rolling. It is recommended to roll out fondant or gum paste on the Wilton Roll-N-Cut Mat.
• Flatten.
• Use medium pressure and the palms of your hands to push the Fondant Roller as you roll.
• Always roll from the center to the edges.
• If using dusting pouch rather than vegetable shortening, be sure to keep rolling surface lightly dusted to avoid sticking.
• Do not turn fondant or gum paste when rolling.
• As a general rule while rolling, if you want the fondant or gum paste to adhere to the surface
 and then release, use solid vegetable shortening. If you want it to slide freely (for ruffles and similar techniques), use a dusting pouch.
• If fondant or gum paste doesn't roll out easily, check to be sure it isn't sticking to the surface. Make sure your surface is prepared properly.

    A couple things that I was really excited about making in this course was a fondant bow, a cake board covered in fondant and making my first "real" fondant cake.
The only thing difficult in this course, was that kneading and the work that I was doing, required two hands, so I was not able to take as many pictures as I have been before.

                        In lesson one we cut out the strips of fondant for the a fondant bow

with the Wilton ribbon cutter that came in my course kit. It has several other cutting settings to which it can be a ruffled bow as well! I can't wait to try that out sometime.

Elba and I kneaded, rolled and cut out fifteen of these strips, then folded them in half and formed a loop while pressing the ends together. Then cut the corners off so that it was almost forming a triangle.

We were instructed to place them on a board and put away to dry so we would work with them the following week.

For the remainder of the class time, Elba and I formed Mum bases,

  Rose bases, and Carnation bases for following weeks to come.

Which I was also unable to capture pictures of, as they required two hands to make.

 

Fun lesson! Can't wait to learn more in Gum paste and Fondant!

 

-Cake Crumb Girl

 

Valentine's Day Cupcakes for Thursday Classes

      The Autumn cupcakes in the fall went over so well, I decided to donate cupcakes to the snack bar at Thursday classes again for Valentine's day.

 

(I thought Red Velvet flavored cupcakes were appropriate for the national day of hearts.)

             They went over just as well as they did before, but with three leftover this time. 

I think I'll try doing it again on Easter as well.

Have a great week!

-Cake Crumb Girl