Relief Society Birthday Dinner

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

This is a cake I made for the Relief Society Birthday Dinner. The inside was checkered vanilla and raspberry cake with strawberry filling between the layers. The green on top and the brown basket weave were done with buttercream. The flowers and the leaves in the middle (the lighter ones) were done with gum paste. This was my first time working with gum paste, and it was incredibly fun. The roses did take a long time, but I got pretty good by the end. The centers of the forget-me-nots are edible sugar pearls. The darker leaves are made out of fondant and gave me the look I was going for on the sides. I wanted the leaves to drape over the edges of the basket, so I used fondant. Unfortunately, I didn't match up the greens just right, so the leaves came out different colors. Next time I will definitely try to match them up better so it's not so obvious.

Foerster Wedding

February 2008

>3-tier
>square
>vanilla cake

>white buttercream frosting
>hand-done text with edible ink on edible paper
>ribbon and topper provided by customer

This was the third official wedding cake I did, with help from my best friend Meghan. It was the first time making a big cake with buttercream frosting. It came out nice, but I decided that I prefer working with fondant.

Simple Birthday Cake

This was a simple birthday cake I threw together rather last minute. The inside was checkered chocolate and cherry chip cake. I used white buttercream for the frosting, the borders, and the flourishes. I used blue colored buttercream for the text.

Easter Basket

Meghan and I made this really fun cake to look like an Easter basket. The inside was just plain yellow cake. We used brown buttercream to create the basket weave. We used green-tinted coconut for the grass. We rolled out some bread dough and braided it, then baked it to make the handle. Then we added peeps and Starburst jelly beans. It was a big hit, and many people thought it was an actual Easter basket!

Gab and Gab

We made this cake for our home teachers Gabriel and Gabriel. We called them both Gab. Hence the "Gabs" written on the cake. It was all made from scratch using dairy substitutes because one of them was lactose intolerant. The inside was all white cake, but half of it was colored blue so we could make it checkered.

Cake Design Class (4)

Here are the last few pictures I have from my Wilton classes. The first cake was a chocolate cake decorated with chocolate buttercream (and some brown-colored vanilla buttercream). The top seems a bit extreme to me, but I was just following their design. This was the first time I did a side basket weave and I decided to do a two-tone weave. It was a lot more intense than I thought it would be, but I think it came out absolutely beautifully.

The second cake was fairly simple. I did the roses and leaves first. The coin purse was white chocolate that had been set in a mold. Then I decorated it with edible shimmer dust and put it on top of the cake.

Cake Design Class (3)

Here are some more cakes. I think I was in the level 2 Wilton class by this point, but I'm not sure.

The first cake was one that I made for my friend based off the cake I had decorated in class. I stuck pretty close to the same design, but made a few changes. I was getting pretty good at writing with frosting by this point.

The second cake was my first time decorating a large cake. My family wasn't complaining about getting a cake every week, but I didn't think I wanted such a huge cake lying around the house tempting me. So I made this cake to celebrate the 1-year mark for me and all my fellow co-workers who had been hired at the same time. I brought it into the break room at work, and everyone hugged me with joy. It was gone by the end of the day.

Cake Design Class (2)

Here are some more pictures of cakes that I made during my Wilton class. The first cake was when we learned to rose buds, leaves, and ribbon. This was also my first time writing text on a cake.

The second cake was when we learned to do full roses. We also learned to do an intricate basket weave with rosebuds, leaves, and ribbon. I couldn't think of anything clever to write on the cake though.

Cake Design Class

These are pictures of the cakes I made during my first Wilton cake class. The lion was actually the second cake of the class (I don't seem to have a picture of the first). We brought in a layered round cake and two cupcakes. The cupcake tops were used for the muzzle, and the bottoms were used for the ears. The multi-colored effect was achieved by putting different shades of orange frosting in the same piping bag.

The heart cake was for Valentine's day (big surprise, right?) We brought in the layered heart cake (the beginning of my pan collection). I smoothed on pink-colored buttercream for the base, then decorated using white buttercream. First I made the outline for the heart and filled it with strawberry jam. The cornelli lace came next and was fairly time consuming, but pretty fun, and I loved the look. Last of all was the shelled border done in white buttercream.