Wilton Cake Decorating Course 1 : Lesson 4 and Graduation

I graduated the first course in the Wilton Method syllabus today.So yay for me!

The cake was a white chocolate banana cake.

Some writing before all the placement of roses

My instructor Ms. Angeline Stanley handing over my cert. Weee!

Close-up of the golden paper

The excited graduating class taking pics

The fruits of our buttercream labour

I think this was the winner..her roses were perfect!

A lemony beauty

My neighbour Sabrina's gem

Other beauties

My friendly and hardworking classmates

Okay this was the last pic before the 'mishap'. Yeah my cake fell (Gasp!) but thank goodness it wasn't smashed to smitherines. Just fell on some files almost hitting the floor and dented on one side but my borders hancur :( Perhaps I should invest in a better cake caddy.
I managed to repair the cake once I reached home.Not as perfect as before but presentable and added more roses to hide the dent.Oh well, I will have to be much more careful next time. Course 1 was fun and even though the tasks were relatively simple, it truly was a challenge for me as it was not easy balancing my time between baby and prepping for class. I will probably start Wilton Method Cake Decorating Course 2 : Flowers and Cake Design in April. I bet that would be an even bigger challenge and loads of fun!

Wilton Cake Decorating Course 1 : Lesson Three

Cupcakes! Who doesn't love cupcakes? Yup this week we had to decorate cupcakes in class and master the Wilton rose. We practiced with all kinds of tips and created many interesting designs with 3D effect using buttercream. Here are the pics of my cupcakes. By the way, these are Chocolate Guinness flavoured cupcakes.Yeah you read right. GUINNESS. The stout beer. Though not bitter, it's a sweetened version. Don't worry nobody got drunk eating it hehe. I was a bit in a hurry icing the cupcakes but I figured since I was gonna decorate on it, it wouldn't matter anyway.

My cuppies

Grapes with 3D effects

Ma clowns without the buttons

My first Wilton rose

With leaves

I made balloons with the shell borders and drop flowers too

All and all pretty useful techniques but as with everything, practice makes perfect. I wish I had more time but I had to go back early to prepare for a party. By the way I made Red velvet cake with the guinness cupcakes. That's in the next blog. :)

Homework? Yup we need to make 30 Wilton roses and bring an 8 inch cake to decorate for graduation class next week. Looking forward to that!

Wilton Cake Decorating Course 1 : Lesson Two

Hello folks!! Just a quick overview on my second class at ICCA. As usual it's a balancing act whenever I do things other than mommy duties but I managed to bake a three layer yellow cake with chocolate ganache fillings a day before class.

So this is the cake I baked.
This is the cake after torting it.
Then I made chocolate ganache which is basically dark chocolate mixed with heated whipping cream which is then cooled.
Then you stack 'em together. The white stuff is the icing dam and the ganache filling is slathered inside the dam so that it doesn't spill out when you start stacking.

The remaining icing is then coloured teal which is a light blue tint. The cake is then iced with the help of tip #789. This is the most tedious part because getting the surface nice and smooth is the goal. I find it helps to heat the spatula with hot water and then once the frosting has crusted (meaning dry to the touch), smooth it over with parchment paper and like my instructor Angeline says 'sayang-sayang' the cake. :)

So this morning I went to class and we practiced icing with our star tips. It is harder than it looks as the constant pressure on the piping bag is quite taxing on the hands. I imagine it will be harder with a larger design. We also practiced writing with buttercream. It was a lot of fun despite my instructor telling us we all looked so serious doing it. I guess it showed our determination to master the skill haha!
Then we made a piping gel transfer on to the cake.The piping gel transfer technique is useful in copying a desired picture unto your cake. So this is how my cake looked like after that:
About nearly an hour after that, this is what I managed to decorate on my cake. I apologize for the scientifically incorrect potrayal of the rainbow. The writing skills still needs a bit more practice but it sure looked pretty to me. 
Then it's momom time. Yumm..
So what did I find useful in this lesson? EVERYTHING! Valuable ones for me are probably how to ice the cake smoothly, piping gel technique and writing techniques. All in all I had fun and gave me more confidence in my cake decorating skills. I can't wait for the next lesson in which we are gonna decorate cupcakes instead. Wait for that in my upcoming blog!

How to sew your own apron!

Just a quick tutorial on how to sew your own apron.I know this has nothing to do with cakes but I noticed I didn't have an apron to bring to class so I decided to sew one. So this is how I did it :))

First, cut out half the desired shape of apron on a newspaper.I can't give you the measurements cos it depends on your size and a good rule of thumb is to measure the length you want and the width you want the apron to cover on your body and chest. Then pin it on the folded part of the material (mine was a printed canvas material) and cut it along the template. Kiut kan my kaki :P

Do the same thing on another thinner fabric to get the same shape and lay them together, printed side facing each other. Pin them together.

Then sew along the sides all around at 0.5 cm except in the end, leave about 2 inches opening.

This is how it looks like once you put it inside out through the 2 inch opening. Once this is done you may stitch the opening close by hand.

Now iron it flat.

Now measure and cut the desired fabric length you want around your waist. Mine was 55 inches long and 2 inches wide. Take two strips of the material, put the printed sides facing each other and sew along the sides except for the ends and then put it inside out to reveal the printed side.

Iron it flat.

Put it on to the apron, making sure that it is symmetrical. Secure with pins and then sew it on the apron till the ends of the strip.

Now for the strip of fabric that hangs on the neck.You can measure yourself how low or high your want the apron to hang on your neck.From there add an inch allowance for you to sew it on to your apron. Repeat steps you did for the waist strip.The pic above shows how it looks like after it is put inside out.

Once that is done, pin it to the back of your apron and sew it on.

Voila!!! You have sewed yourself a cute apron specifically to your size! Best ka best?

Wilton Method of Cake decorating:Course 1 Lesson One

Woohoo!! I finally attended the first class in Course 1. I was five minutes late due to baby wanting a last drink from the 'tap'..lol! There was also a slight jam on the way to Kota Damansara on this lovely Saturday morning but I managed to get to class in time for the class introduction.

My instructor was Ms.Angeline Stanley. From what I gathered she has been teaching at Wilton ICCA for about five years now and is an established cake decorator.You may checkout her website http://www.angelinestanley.com/ to see her cute cakes. There were 14 students including moi and all had their special reasons for joining this course. They ranged from retirees to aspiring cake business people like myself. There was even one guy and he wanted to learn cake decorating for his wedding events business. Aaaaand as always there's that one overachiever student who asks a lot of questions and has been attending all the other courses to one up herself! haha!


Well today was more of an introductory class. It still was full of information. Information that you would definitely not get by just watching Youtube. All and all we were taught on how to tell the difference between stiff, medium and thin consistencies of icing. Then we were taught on how to colour the icing and she gave many tips that was not stated in the Wilton Course book. We were also taught on how to properly ice and tort a cake. I mean I've done all that before but the techniques were really useful and methodical.

This is what was in my student kit.

We were taught about the use of different tips and how to use them with couplers and piping bags.I found that it was very useful how Angeline described how to manipulate the piping bag using the angles of your wrist and in reference to the positions on the clock. At last we were given a demo on the famous Wilton rose. Angeline made it look so effortless!

Finally like in any class we were given HOMEWORK! Yes for the next lesson we were supposed to bake a cake of our choice, tort and ice it ourselves and bring it to class. Apparently we are to complete a rainbow decorated cake in Lesson two. Even though it looks like a simple cake, I think it's an important base to all cake decorating skills. For that, I'm excited!