Cake Decorating Class.. First and Possibly Last

I live near a little cake shop and I recently just finished a little course they offered "Intro to Cake Decorating"... a lot of it was a little basic but I did pick up a few good tricks and learned how to make a buttercream rose and such. We had to make a cake for the last class (it was four classes, each 2 hours) and I decided to go with an ornately decorated little greenish cake. I liked the way that unlike my classmates, I was not using all sorts of random colors and but instead went with a "cool" color background and all of my decorations were in white. I was trying to class things up, you see. hehe

On this cake, I practiced making a ruffle along the top and then I added some string work, which I had been meaning to try. String work is where you pipe thin "strings" of icing and they typically are hanging in the air, at least partially. I added a rosette type of a border along the bottom which I thought was a poor choice, I would've scraped it off and done something more delicate if I could have.


On the top I practiced some cornelli lace (please ignore the asymmetrical "flower" shape that the lace is filling in --- for a real cake, I would've made sure it was straight!), and I did some "beadwork" to outline the lace, and finally there was room in the center for one rose. It was pretty fun to just sit there and do whatever came to mind. And I didn't even have an occasion so I brought the cake to fatten up my coworkers... and as it turned out, it was my 3rd anniversary date at work so I could've used that as an excuse. Happy Anniversary To Me!!!

I used the cake instructor's frosting recipe which she swears people loves and that it is the best, and let me tell you, this "Baker's Complement" extract (as opposed to vanilla or almond) is pretty weird smelling and tasting. I don't think I'm going to use this recipe again! It sorta lost its weird taste after a few days, afterwhich her half shortening/half margarine recipe tasted pretty similar to the frosting at Kroger.

Anyway, it was an interesting experience and I'm glad I got to try the rose and stringwork in particular, I will be doing so again! They are easier than they look! The class was OK though it interfered with my other more interesting projects, such as the Chili CookOff cupcakes. It was a little annoying to have to make the nasty "class buttercream" the night before the class when I had some cute little peppers and GM signs to pipe out... but if I hadn't had taken the class, I would have always wondered if I was missing something. It turns out that it's just fine to look in books and online for ideas, and it's perfectly fine to learn from my mom, from trial and error myself, and from reading about other people online!