Took a cake decorating class

I love to bake. I think that I should have been a baker. I make great cookies and pies but never tried making cakes. I just was never good at making them look as good as they tasted. You would think that it would be easy to frost a cake, but for me it isn't. I would always pull the cake up with the frosting and at the end my cake would always look liked like a hill covered in dirty snow. So I always bought cakes that where way overpriced instead of making them myself.


I was browsing online and found that Michaels craft store does cake decorating classes. I really wanted to learn something new, so I signed up for it. The class would meet once a week for a month. I was very excited!


The class itself was not pricey. I believe it was only $50 to join. It was all the items that you had to purchase for the class that made it expensive. I had to purchase a starter kit which included all the tips for piping, a cake holder so I could transfer the cake back and forth, pipping bags, a decorating turntable, 4 containers of frosting and 4 cake mixes to bring a cake to every class. My $50 class quickly turned into a $200 class.
The first class I learned the basics; How to frost a cake. This had to be the hardest thing for me to learn. I wanted my cake to have a smooth look to it but as you can see, my cake wasn't that smooth. It requires alot of frosting. I went through an entire container of frosting just doing this. I would need to get more frosting just to decorate the darn cake.

When I got home, I went on youtube.com to see if I could learn anymore about how to frost a cake. I found this video and learned alot. After watching this, I was able to frost a decently smooth cake.
The next class I learned how to do basic decorations. A simple shell border, stars and roses. My cake looks so pathetic. I apparently was afraid to use more gel coloring in my frosting. The pink showed up nicely, but I actually used purple for the top border and the roses.

Here is a closeup of my first attempt to making roses. They look like swirl blobs. These guys were hard to do. My frosting was getting too soft in my hand so my roses would droop. I also decided that the more petals I did the better. This is not the case. The more I did roses, the more I found that doing only 5 or 6 petals was perfect.
The last class I was getting pretty darn good. I was not afraid to use color in my icing. We learned how to make clown bodies. It looked strange but then when you add the little clown head pick, it brought it all together. I was so proud of this cake!
A closeup of my little clown. See I even crossed his little legs! My roses aren't that bad either! I actually got really good at doing borders.
This was my 100% edible Halloween cake that I did a few weeks after the class ended. With my new skills, I was able to create this cake. Everyone raved about it. The black frosting was created chocolate frosting and black food gel. I got fancy and did a basket weave on the side (very easy to do!) The ghost and gravestones where candy molds I bought. I dyed white chocolate with black candy coloring to make it gray. When the candy set, I rubbed the gravestone with black food coloring to make it look like it was stone. I also took a toothpick and painted the ghost eyes and mouths.

Details

Michaels- Where I took the classes and bought all the supplies

Wiltons- The class was designed by them. They also are the ones who made all the supplies for cake decorating.