Two firsts.....

When my cousin got engaged last New Year's, it was quickly decided that I would make the wedding cake as a gift to the happy couple!  :)  The only problem.....I'd never made a cake that big before.....and I definitely had never made a wedding cake before!!!!

Once we figured out an approximate number of guests and the color scheme, I quickly got to work sketching out some ideas.  Here's what I came up with:

The cake tiers would be 12", 10", 8", and 6".  It would serve approximately 100-125 people depending on which chart you're using when figuring that out. It would be covered in Satin Ice fondant and the accents would be a mixture of Satin Ice Vanilla and Satin Ice Dark Chocolate.

A few months before the wedding, when I knew I'd have some extra visitors at my house to help eat some cake, I got to work making the practice cake.  There was NO WAY I was going to make this cake without having some practice under my belt.  And it's a good thing I did because this is how it turned out:

(click on the picture for a closer look to get the full picture)

Not the ugliest cake you've ever seen, but definitely not what a bride thinks of when they picture their wedding cake!  I was afraid that if I put this on a cake table at the wedding, someone would turn me into Cake Wrecks! :)

I definitely learned a lot from my practice.  I realized just how important 4" tiers are when you are making a stacked cake, how important it is to make sure you center the plates under the tiers just right, that a 12" cake board under a 12" cake looks a little off, and just how hard it can be to work with fondant in August in Maui! I also realized how important it is to use a fondant/gumpaste mixture when making bows; you can roll that mixture much thinner making the bow MUCH lighter and quicker to dry!! The thing that bugged me the most was the cardboard cake boards showing and the gaps between the layers. 

Over the next few months, I had a chance to practice some more on some different cakes.  I taught myself a few new tricks, gained some more confidence and was able to produce a beautiful cake for my cousin's wedding and I did all while also being Maid of Honor, mother of the Flower Girl and Ring Bearer, and helping to do a lot of the planning and coordinating!  This is the final result:

                                               

I'm very proud of this cake!

This cake is also in the background of my picture on the right!

So, first wedding cake....wondering what the other first is?????

I'll tell ya......

My first Groom's cake!!!!  My cousin's husband is from Texas and a big Longhorns fan (Hook 'Em Horns!!!), so we planned a surprise cake to serve at the rehearsal dinner.  I did a little research on Cake Central, borrowed some ideas, and this is what I came up with:

 

This cake was harder than it looks!  I cut out all the shapes using an Exact-o knife!  No cookie cutters on this one!  The groom really liked this cake and was totally surprised.  A bunch of his family and friends had flown in from Texas and they really like it also.

I'm trying to get some stuff together to do a post of my favorite things; there might even be some Wilton items on the list!  haha! Hopefully I can pull that together in the next couple weeks or so!

If you're interested in serving charts for cakes, here are a few to check out:

Earlene's Cake Serving Chart

Wilton Cake Serving Chart

Country Kitchen Serving Chart

Another blast from the past

**Disclaimer** - I'm sure it sounds like I absolutely HATE Wilton and their products, so let me clarify.  Wilton classes are a GREAT way to learn some of the basics of cake decorating.  I believe, however, that some of their methods are a bit outdated.  I also have a love/hate relationship with their products.  Though others may not agree, I think most of their basic products are wonderful.  I have many of them: spatulas, rolling pins, fondant cutters, etc.  On the other hand, some of the products are not so great....the prime example is their fondant!  That stuff is NASTY!!!!  And don't get me started on those lacy looking cake boards.  :) Ok....got that off my chest, just didn't want you to think I was completely against Wilton and their products.

Ahh....another Wilton finale cake.  I know their intent is to bring everything you've learned together in the course into one gorgeous cake, I'm just not sure that's what actually happens.  Let's take course 2 as an example.  Here are the things covered in Wilton Course 2: Flowers and Borders:

 - Royal Icing Flowers

      - rosebuds

      - daisies

      - daffodils

      - mums

      - and more

 - Borders

      - reverse shell

      - rosettes

      - rope

 - Basketweave

      - does anyone really use this anymore?  Seriously?  Do they?

 - Colorflow

      - essentially its royal icing used to make an outline and really thin royal icing poured into the dried outline

Most of these are great techniques to learn, others are not.  I'm not sure how many people use royal icing flowers anymore.  It seems that sugarpaste/gumpaste flowers are more popular now-a-days.  Borders are a great thing to learn, it's nice to know how to do more than one border.  As far as basketweave, I'm seriously curious if this is still used, it seems pretty outdated to me.  The colorflow technique is especially great when it comes to icing sugar cookies, but as far as accents for cake, it seems fondant and gumpaste are more popular.  Not to mention, you can get them same effect using thick royal icing as an outline and a thinner royal icing for filling it in...no need to actually buy the colorflow powder.

Ok.....so, you learn all those things in Course 2 and you're supposed to bring them all together for your finale cake.  That's a whole lot of crap to put on one cake.  Oh, and I did I mention then finally cake is baked in the oval pans supplied in your course kit?  I'm not sure why they want you to make an oval cake....maybe it's so they can charge more for the kit?  Who knows? 

Ok, enough ranting there.....

Anyway, when you take all those techniques and throw then onto one cake, the result is a super-sugary, over-flowery, kinda-cheesy, oval cake.  It looks a little something like this:

My Course 2 finale cake - circa January 2008

Engagement Cake

My most recent cake was for an engagement party.  It was for one of the men that work with my husband.  They asked a couple months ago if I would do something for the party and I said I'd love to.  Here's what I was given as inspiration:

Centerpieces

Guest Book

Right away I knew what I wanted to do for the cake; two tiers covered in fondant with the black floral design.  I just had to figure out how I wanted to get the floral design on the cake. 

I looked into ordering some supplies from the mainland, but decided against it because the shipping was OUTRAGEOUS!!!!  Seriously....we're talking $42 to ship $25 worth of product!  The only places I can get cake supplies on the island are Wal-Mart and Ben Franklin and they only carry some Wilton products, so I had to figure out how to use what I had.  Between this post and my last couple posts, have you figured out yet that I'm not a HUGE fan of some of Wilton's products?  Ok, enough ranting....back to the cake!  I love the black and white color scheme, but as anyone who has ever worked with food coloring knows, it's super hard to turn white into black.  I briefly considered painting the design on the fondant with black food coloring, but decided against because I was not sure how it would stand up in the humidity outside.  I was checking on my fondant supply when I came across my stash of Satin Ice Dark Chocolate fondant.  I took it out and realized that it was so dark I could pass it off as black.  I quickly got to work with some cookie cutters and pizza cutter and here's what I came up with:

What do you think? 

I think I've come a LONG way since October 2007!  This is probably one of my favorite cakes I've done.

Why?

I'm sure you're all wondering why I started this cake decorating nonsense...ok, maybe you're not, but I'll tell you anyway.  I have two reasons......the two cute kiddos in the pictures below!!  :) 

Aren't they the cutest?

I wanted to be the kind of mom who made the cakes for my kids' birthdays.  And I didn't want to settle for a Betty Crocker cake with some Betty Crocker frosting slapped on top.  No offense to the Betty Crocker, Duncan Hines, Pilsbury, etc. moms of the world. 

When my daughter turned 1 I was just pregnant with my son....that should be read that I was nauseous and tired!  :)  That year Sam's Club cupcakes won out, they were easy and I could easily get colors that matched the decor.  For her second birthday I was determined to make something, so I settled on cupcakes.  I found out that they weren't quite as easy as they looked; they weren't quite as tasty as they looked either.  (Side note:  The buttercream recipe that Wilton provides is super sweet and doesn't actually contain any butter.  Perhaps they should call it Crisco cream?) I also discovered that blue frosting is a mess!  Who wants to walk around with blue teeth all day?

Here's what I came up with....real original, I know :)

My son's birthday is in November, so in October I decided I'd start taking the Wilton classes at my local Michael's craft store.  I should be able to learn it all in a month, right?  haha!  I wanted to at least get some of the basics down so I could make his first birthday; I figured it couldn't be too hard. Because I stuck with a simple design it actually wasn't too hard.  The hardest part was getting the icing smooth since I'm a bit of perfectionist. (To be honest, getting the icing perfectly smooth is still my biggest issue!) 

Not too bad, right?  Will I ever learn to calm down with the blue frosting?

I finally got to make my daughter a proper cake for her 3rd birthday.  It was my first stacked tier cake.  This time I frosted it in purple.....not much better than blue!  :)  Whatever the color, I was pleased with the results and she LOVED it!

Well, there you have it. Whether or not you cared, you now know what started my passion for cake decorating.  I owe it all to my precious kiddos! 

Wilton 1 Finale Cake = YIKES!!!!!

(October 2007)

Beautiful roses...or maybe not so beautiful, massive amounts of Crisco and powdered sugar, food coloring everywhere, massive amounts of frustrastion, being sick of buttercream....... These are all things I associate with my first Wilton cake course. 

Anyone else look back at their cakes from Wilton courses and wonder what you were thinking?  I know I do!  Things like..."HOLY COW!!!  How much food coloring did I use on this cake alone?!?!?!" or "You know, I still don't know how to make those stinking roses!"  And then there are those beautiful scallop edge cake boards!  My favorite part is the fake lace look! :)

Hope you enjoyed this look at one of my first cakes....better ones to come....I hope!