Michael’s Basic Cake Decorating Class – Day 2

(To read about Day 1 of the cake class, click here).

Above is the cake I decorated for day 2 of my Michael’s store cake decorating class, basic level.

This week’s class was much more hands on, as last week we pretty much just watched our instructor make icing and decorate a cake. This time we had to bring our own cake and 2 batches of homemade icing, along with our materials from our kits and instruction booklet. I also brought along some icing gel colours to make the icing different shades.

When I got to the class, the first thing we did was level the tops of our cakes and then flip them upside down, as the bottom of the cake was much sturdier to ice than the fluffy top. It was then optional to cut our cake in half and fill the middle with either icing, jam or pudding. I brought along chocolate pudding mixed with strawberries.

We then iced the cake with our icing and then learned how to create the cupcake design with clear piping gel. I’m not a big fan of piping gel, as I can’t see myself using it too often. I would much rather learn how to make flowers, which will be next week’s lesson when we bring cupcakes!

The cupcake was piped with a #12 icing tip and the top border was piped with a #18 icing tip.

Things I learned in tonight’s class:

1). If you stick the icing in the fridge, remove it more than 2 hours prior to your class. My icing was still a little cold and stiff, thus spreading it was a little difficult.

2). Make your cake the night before you plan to ice it. I did, since I only have just over an hour between work and my cake class, but the girl next to me had a fresh “made that day” cake and it was too soft and kept crumbling when she tried to ice it.

Below is the recipe we used for buttercream. It’s very tasty and I added some almond extract to round out the flavour. I know there are many versions there, but I’ll have to start my recipe collection somewhere.

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Yield: 2 1/2 cups

Wilton's Buttercream Icing

Total Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup solid white vegetable shortening
• 1 tsp flavouring (almond, vanilla, etc)
• 7-8 tsp water or milk
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tbsp meringue powder

Directions:

1. Cream shortening, flavouring and water. Add sugar and mix on medium speed until thoroughly mixed. Blend an additional minute until creamy.
2. To thin out icing, add 2 1/2 tsp water for medium consistency or 5 tsp water for thin consistency.

From Wilton's Decorating Basics