Show Pieces & Cake Decorating - Weeks 1 & 2

On Saturdays, I have two classes: Show Pieces and Specialty Cake Decorating. I don't have any pictures to show for my Show Pieces class but we were broken up into groups of 3 and are working on a large sugar centerpiece. The theme is Music so we worked diligently last week making lots of pastillage and cutting out lots of treble clefs, records, piano pieces, and such. They will be assembled over the next couple of weeks so I'll be sure to show you a picture once it starts coming together.

I am absolutely in love with my Specialty Cake Decorating class. I figured I would either hate cake decorating or love it and to my surprise, I LOVE it! I've had little experience thus far with cake decorating except for a few in a previous class and just playing around at home so I am like a sponge in class and trying to learn anything and everything I can, making sure to ask lots of questions. This is a very small class (7 people) so there is lots of opportunity for one-on-one instruction from the chef.

The first week of class we made a ton of yellow high ratio cakes to last us several weeks of decorating. We also made the largest batch of buttercream icing I've ever seen. At the end of our first class we practiced piping a bead border and writing Happy Birthday on parchment paper.

Week two was our first attempt at decorating a cake, trying to get the sides as straight and smooth as possible. We would ice a cake, get the chef's approval, then scrape off the icing and do it over and over again. You know what they say..."Practice makes perfect!" We also learned how to do a shell border and a reverse shell border in week 2.

Here is my reverse shell border.


And here is the cake that I decorated about 4 times. :) For practicing purposes, we just used all white buttercream. I still have lots of room for improvement, but I was very happy with how it turned out and had a lot of fun in the process.


Towards the end of class we learned how to make roses with buttercream. Part of our homework is to practice making roses at home. Next week we are going to decorate a cake for a 5 year old's birthday and then it's on to learning about fondant. I can't wait!!!