Easy as Cake

After Class #1 Practice:  My Mother's Day Cake (with help from the kids)

Class #2:  My rainbow cake.

Class #3:  One of my clown cupcakes.

Class #4:  My "graduation" cake

After a four-week cake-deocorating class that finished today, I have learned a few things from my instructor and the course materials, as well as a little experience and a few early lessons from Miss T:

• Want to keep your cake moist?  A simple syrup (equal parts water and sugar, boiled and cooled) does the trick.  Just poke some holes in the bottom layer of cake and drizzle it on.  Continue as planned.
  
• One jar of jelly is a bit too much for the filling layer, even though it's tempting to use the whole jar.
• Is your cake slipping off your turntable or cake carrier?  Place a rubber jar opener under the foil-covered cardboard disc your cake is sitting on.
• Technique is important, but frosting consistency is key and can make or break your decorating efforts.  If it's too stiff in the bag, just add a bit of water or knead it with your hands a bit.
  
• When cutting the opening for the tip or coupler, put the tip or coupler in the bag and mark it with your fingernail (on the coupler, where the smooth part meets the treads), and then always cut closer to the tip of the bag than your mark--you can always cut more but if you make the hole too big, your tip will pop out under pressure and you'll have to start all over again.
• Keep a tall glass or heavy cup nearby to place your bags in while filling them (you can even fold the bag over the cup to help hold it open).
• Too many crumbs while icing the cake?  Make sure the consistency of the frosting is thin--spreading stiff icing too hard pulls up crumbs.  Remedy?  Just do a crumb layer and make the second frosting layer thinner than the first.
• To smooth out the frosting on a cake, let it first form a crust (about 20 minutes) and then put a sheet of wax paper on it.  Rub with your hand or a spatula to smooth.
  
• How do you keep the fillings inside your cake?  Place a border of buttercream around the edge of the lower cake before spreading the filling or more buttercream.
• Trouble frosting the edge of your cake where the top meets the sides?  I love using the 789 tip to apply the frosting on top while spinning my turntable.  Then just overhang the last round, frost the edges, and gently merge the two.
• Canned frosting out of the ready-made Wilton can is perfect for roses (and tastes better than class buttercream!).
  
• Want to add letters or shapes to your cake design?  Use cookie cutters to impress an outline.  It's easier than piping gel transfers!
• Your rose nail is easier to manage in a paper/styrofoam cup, which frees up your hands to change tips, tighten the icing bag, etc.
• Dipping your finger in cornstarch allows you to flatten peaks on dots, buttons, and other designs.
• Writing on a cake is not like writing with pen and paper: do not retrace parts of your letters as you form them.
• Finally, something I saw at a birthday party just today:  make your royal icing roses on dum-dum sized lollipops and then just stick them in the cake with the stick!  Kids will love to eat them!  Think it would work with buttercream?

I've got lots of cakes in my head now, to make over the next few weeks (including Mama's birthday cake and a 4th of July cake), as preparation for my raison d'etre:  the kiddos' birthday cakes!  (Yep, plural:  one will have bunnies and the other will have dinosaurs.  Because combining them is like some Monty Python or Japanese Godzilla movie).