Chic Cakes...or something like that

Since our last post (a month ago....geez), this Chic Lady decided to dabble in decorating some Chic Cakes.  Kinda.

My Chic Lady's Man says that taking a cake decorating class is an extension of my scrapbooking.  It's creating.  It's expressive.  So I enrolled in the Wilton Cake Decorating Course at Michael's.  I really needed a cake baking course, but that's another blog.  The course was offered at 50% for about $23, but you also have to buy the Course 1 kit that cost about $35.  But do we buy anything full price at craft stores?  Chic Lady says of course not, so we got that half off too.  However, that's not the only cost.  If you are not already a baker, you have to purchase cake pans and additional baking supplies.

Special thanks to our crafty friend Nikki B., who donated a jumbo box of goodies from her previous cake class and saved us some major bucks!  Hey a Chic Lady is a savvy saver as well. Oh-kay!

Wilton offers four courses (check your local craft stores for dates) that takes you through the basics of decorating a cake to crafting various flowers.

Course 1 is  Decorating Basics.  In class 1 we were introduced to various tips that create different shapes.  We learned how to properly prepare our icing bags and make star shapes, squiggly lines, and circles.  We had the chance to take our first crack at decorating on some sugar cookies (that I made from scratch for the first time and the were DELICIOUS).

My Workstation and supplies

The star tip was used for my first decorating success!

Class 2 was a bit more challenging.  We had to bring in a cake to practice some of the techniques we had learned the previous class.  Also, we had to make our own icing.  (What??!!! That yummy goodness doesn't come in a jar already made). First of all, my cake was a disaster (told you I needed a cake baking class).  However, since I was just decorating it, I didn't stress.  We learned how to cut our cakes in half and fill them with whatever your hearts content, then ice and decorate the cake.

Here was my dismal attempt...

Oops! We'll just cover that with icing.

Ta-dah!  First officially iced cake.

Practice board with squiggly lines long and scrunched.

First...err, decorated cake.  Keep in mind I was just practicing the techniques we'd learned.

Close up of my squiggly lines.

In class 3 we took on one of the world's biggest trends right now...cupcakes.  This time I cheated and used boxed cake (come on, you know you've done it too).  This was my first time making cupcakes and they were fun to decorate.  I experimented with some shades of blue and attempted a few, ahem, designs.

Take a look:

Practicing my leaf technique.

Yup, my leaf skills are nice.

Variety of "flowers" of some sort.

For our last class the pressure was on.  Class 4 was our final project.  The cake that determined if we earned our certificate.  This time I had to have my cake and icings ready to go when I got to class.  This included filling the cake, icing it, and having my icing colors ready.  I made the cake from scratch again (why on earth would I do that). We learned two final techniques, how to write and how to make a rose.  Once I got the rose technique down, I was one rose making machine.  The writing could use some more work.  Although, in my defense, my icing was a little too stiff for writing, but the instructor said my writing was better than hers (insert smiley face here). Never mind that my roses had a blue center, I didn't want to keep changing the tip thank you very much.

Here's my certificate worthy efforts:

Writing practice board.

My rose garden.  Can you spot the one that's wrong?

The first Chic Cake :-)

Not as good as our wedding cake, but it made me smile just as much.

So, I realize that this is a long post and I thank you for reading all the way through.  Next time I will try to be better about posting as it happens so it's not crammed all into one (hey, I said try).

Bring on Course 2...

Here's a picture of our wedding cake of which we happily ate a slice on our one year anniversary  (I'll get to this level soon):

Yummy Wedding Cake 7.30.11

We wanna know... How do you express your craftiness?  Also, would you eat a year old wedding cake?