Wilton Course 3: Final Class Cake!

The grand finale!

Remember all those fondant roses I was working on?

Well, after many hours of hand sculpting roses, I brushed them with petal dust, and added calyxes, and made leaves.  So in the end:

But let's go back... wayyyy back... to yesterday:

The bottom tier was a 10" chocolate blackout cake, with espresso truffle filling, and fresh raspberries.  I actually can't wait to cut into this cake.  Are you salivating yet?  Cuz I am.  It's in the same room...

Stacked cake.

The top tier was actually a 6" dummy.  Both tiers were covered in white fondant.

When we got to class, we used the push-in pillars to create the structure.

Let's be clear on one thing:  I'm not a big fan of white plastic pillars.  But I'm a good student and I do as I'm told.  :)  But seriously,  if it were up to me, I'd probably wrap dowels in fondant so that the color and texture would look more like the cake and less like cheap plastic.  

The border on both cakes was a tip 18 shell with a tip 127 ruffle piped over it, then a tip 16 shell over the top of the ruffle.  After piping the borders, we cut out some fondant cut out flowers, and piped centers:

Finally, we put on the flowers we brought to class, using buttercream as the glue.

A view of the top of the cake.

The bottom tier flower cascade.

The nice white photo background was set up in my class-- the other pictures are from their normal spot on my dining room table.  Also, one of the fabulous ladies in my class had a fabulous camera, and supplied me with some super high quality pics, so thanks to her!

Hope you enjoyed the cake pictures, and if you work with me, you might be lucky enough to be eating this cake (well, the bottom tier) with me tomorrow!  :)

Wilton Cake 1- Final Class Cake!

Tonight was my final class in the Wilton Cake 1 series.  But don't fret!  I start Cake 2 next week. :)

For tonight we had to bring an iced cake to class, plus all of our buttercream in appropriate consistencies, colored as desired, and loaded into our parchment/ pastry bags.

At the beginning of class, we went over the Wilton rose.  We piped these onto wax paper squares on #7 flower nails, and let them dry till we were ready to decorate our cakes.

 In this class, we also went over the sweet pea, the bow, and leaves.

After going over the techniques, we had the last ~25 mins to work on our cakes.  For this cake, the roses were placed around a mound of buttercream to give them some height.  By this point, the roses had dried some and could be lifted (carefully) with a flower lifter or scissors, and placed onto the cake. 

After placing the cluster of roses, I filled in with some leaves and vines. 

This cake has already been spoken for by one of my friends, who was celebrating his one year anniversary with his girlfriend.  I piped the message with tip 3 after I finished the rose cluster and leaves.

I piped tip #21 shell borders on the bottom and top, and piped sweet peas all around the bottom border.

Finally I placed the fourth rose above the message, and finished the cake with a couple extra sweet peas on the top.

So I earned my official Wilton course completion certificate!  Hopefully my friend is happy with this cake... :)
Now on to Course 2!