Kangaroo Cookies (April 2012)

Sugar cookies topped with chocolate orange fondant.

 

Lesson learned:

• I mixed some orange LorAnn oil into Wilton's chocolate fondant and it actually gave it a very nice taste. So Wilton's fondant is edible ... if it has extra flavours added to it!

Flower Cupcakes (April 2012)

Yellow cake mini cupcakes iced with lemon buttercream and chocolate cake mini cupcakes iced with peppermint buttercream, all decorated with buttercream drop flowers and leaves.

Lesson learned:

• Buttercream drop flowers are very easy to make and look so pretty! They're definitely my flower of choice for quick decorating.

Daffodil Savarins (April 2012)

Savarins filled with whipped cream and topped with 50/50 gum paste/fondant daffodils.

 Daffodil veined with the Wilton Impression Mat and dusted with yellow pearl dust.

Lessons learned:

• I didn't have a daffodil cutter so I had to cut each petal individually with a small leaf cutter. It took forever to vein and glue each petal! I'm not doing daffodils again unless I get a multi-petal cutter.
• Everything is edible except the stamens. I should try and make royal icing stamens next time.

Easter Cupcakes (March 2012)

 

Flourless honey almond cupcakes iced with poured buttercream and topped with 50/50 gum paste/fondant calla lilies.

Calla lily dusted with yellow pearl dust for added realism.

Lesson learned:

• The Wilton Impression Mat adds beautiful details to the flowers and leaves, making them look even more real. I love making gum paste and fondant flowers!

Cake Pops Galore! (March 2012)

 

Chocolate cake pops covered with poured buttercream and decorated with coloured sugar and sprinkles.

Chocolate cake pops covered with poured buttercream and decorated with sprinkles. Green & white for St. Patrick's Day.

Lessons learned:

• Poured buttercream works so much better than melted chocolate for covering the cake pops. I still need to try the chocolate with Crisco method though. And when doing chocolate cake pops covered in white icing, two coats of icing are better than one (notice the difference between the two pictures).
• If the buttercream is too runny, it just pools up at the bottom of the cake pop. Still need to find that sweet spot between too runny and not runny enough ...
• The coloured sugar seems to be absorbed by the icing and you can't really tell it's there. Maybe I need to wait for the icing to cool down a bit before rolling the pops in sugar. Sprinkles work great though!

Daisy Cake Pops (January 2012)

Chocolate cake pops covered with white chocolate ganache and topped with gum paste daisies.

Lesson learned:

• Covering the pops in chocolate did not work for me at all. The chocolate was not runny enough so it wouldn't cover the pops properly. I tried melting it in the microwave more, but it ended up just seizing on me. I found out later I should have added some Crisco to it. I'll try that next time.

Wilton Course 3: Gum Paste and Fondant (January 2012)

 Class 1: 50/50 gum paste/fondant bow

 Class 2: Gum paste carnation, rose, calla lily and leaves

 Class 3: Gum paste mum and daisy

Class 4: Chocolate cake filled with raspberry jam, iced with chocolate buttercream and covered with Wilton's chocolate fondant. The cake board is covered with marshmallow fondant. The bow is the one we made in the first class. The rest of the decorations are all made out of Wilton's ready-to-use rolled fondant (white and chocolate).

Lessons learned:

• The Wilton Gum Paste and Fondant course was a lot of fun! I loved working with gum paste and fondant. It was like playing with edible Play-Doh :)
• Gum paste flowers look so much better than the buttercream icing ones I've made so far! However, they are a lot more work, and really don't taste as good.
• Wilton's chocolate fondant is very dry and rips very easily! Apparently other brands are better but I haven't tried them yet. 
• I made my own marshmallow fondant to cover the cake board since I wanted to see if I could do it. It didn't work! It was good enough for covering the board, but I never would have been able to cover the cake with it. First I underestimated how much sugar I needed so it was too "soupy". Then I went overboard with the sugar so it dried up too much and wouldn't roll properly. And I probably used too much Crisco since it came out very greasy. I'll try it again and will have to follow the recipe more carefully.
• Wilton's fondant tastes quite bad. We ended up peeling it off the cake before eating the cake. Apparently other brands are better so maybe I'll try those next time, or I'll attempt to make my own marshmallow fondant again.

Christmas Tree Cake (December 2011)

Carrot cake filled and iced with buttercream, decorated with sugar pearls, mini M&Ms, coconut flakes and a shortbread cookie.Cake was baked in Wilton's Christmas Tree Pan.

Lessons learned:

• Using a shaped pan was easier than carving the tree out of a 9x13 pan like I did last year. It also gave it a nice, wavy shape unlike last year's cake, which was very flat.
• Individually placing each sugar pearl is still very time consuming. Maybe I should have used fondant instead. There's always next Christmas ...

Toronto Maple Leafs Pucks (October 2011)

Chocolate chip cookies baked in muffin tins to make them look like pucks. The maple leaves were done using the Frozen Buttercream Transfer method.

Lesson learned:

• I should have outlined the leaves with a different colour, it would have given them more definition.

Birthday/Thanksgiving Cupcakes (October 2011)

Yellow cake cupcakes filled with pumpkin jam and iced with pumpkin buttercream icing. The letters were done using my new favourite: Frozen Buttercream Transfer.

Lesson learned:

• Don't overfill the cupcakes, or they will explode! However, the cupcake papers kept everything together anyway :)

My Little Pony Cake (July 2011)

Yellow cake filled with lemon curd, iced & decorated with buttercream. The red cardinal was created using the Frozen Buttercream Transfer (FBCT) method and My Little Pony was done using the Piping Gel Pattern Transfer technique learned in Wilton's Decorating Basics course.

Lesson learned:

• The Piping Gel Pattern Transfer technique doesn't work very well for small cursive writing, it just leaves an unreadable mess behind. However, the Frozen Buttercream Transfer method seems to work pretty well with writing! My handwriting is not the best and writing on cakes is hard, so I'm happy I can "cheat" and just use FBCT whenever I need to.

Wilton Course 1: Decorating Basics (May/June 2011)

 Class 1: Sugar cookies decorated with buttercream

 Class 2: Yellow cake filled with apricot jam and iced & decorated with buttercream

Class 3: Yellow cake cupcakes filled with apricot jam and iced & decorated with buttercream

Class 4: Yellow cake filled with apricot jam, iced with buttercream and decorated with buttercream roses and drop flowers

Lessons learned:

• The Wilton Decorating Basics course did not disappoint and taught me everything I wish I knew when making all my previous cakes and cupcakes!

Million Dollar Championship Belt (May 2011)

This cake was supposed to be the Million Dollar Championship Belt: yellow cake carved to look like the belt buckle, filled with Nutella, iced with poured buttercream, and decorated with sugar pearls for the diamonds.

Lessons learned:

• Poured buttercream does not work well on a carved cake that has small, fragile pieces on it, like the points of the dollar signs. The poured buttercream tore off all the small pieces and made a big mess. If I had to do this cake again, I would probably try fondant.
• Placing all those sugar pearls was quite tedious. I lost my patience half way through so that's why they don't look quite right. However, the cake recipient is a huge DiBiase fan so he figured out what it was supposed to be right away! Once again, fondant would have probably made life a lot easier here.

Cruise Ship Cake (April 2011)

First stacked cake: lemon cake filled with lemon curd and iced with buttercream, decorated with chocolate chips, licorice strings, orange gumdrops, dried strawberries, and gummy sharks.

Lessons learned:

• Leveling the cake is very important, especially when stacking multiple layers. Oops, shouldn't have skipped that step!
• Icing dams are crucial, especially when using a soft filling like lemon curd. Oops, shouldn't have skipped that step either!
• Dollar store bamboo skewers work great for stacking cakes and they're much cheaper than Wilton's dowel rods.

Christmas Cupcakes (December 2010)

Chocolate cake cupcakes filled and iced with buttercream, with multi-coloured sprinkles on top.

Lesson learned:

• If you overestimate the amount of icing you need, icing freezes very well!

Christmas Tree Cake (December 2010)

Yellow cake filled and iced with buttercream, with sugar pearls and mini M&Ms. The cake was carved out of a 9x13 cake, and the leftover pieces were used for the Christmas gifts.

Lesson learned:

• Placing each sugar pearl individually is very time consuming. There has to be a better way ...

Thanksgiving Cupcakes (October 2010)

Yellow cake cupcakes filled and iced with buttercream, with Wilton's sugar pumpkin decorations.

Lesson learned:

• Overestimate the amount of icing you need, or you'll end up with "naked" cupcakes.

Golf Course Cake (October 2010)

Chocolate cake filled and iced with buttercream. Brown sugar for sand traps and sugar pearls for golf balls. The tee-off markers and the flag are toothpicks.

Lesson learned:

• Grass is easy to make with the Wilton grass tip but the heat of my hand started melting the butter in the icing as I was piping, making it a gooey mess in places. Either put the icing back in the fridge once in a while, or use a different kind of icing.

The Adventure Begins! (September 2010)

First cake I ever decorated: yellow cake filled and iced with buttercream, Superman symbol done using the Frozen Buttercream Transfer method.

Lessons learned:

• Cake decorating is a lot of work, but it's fun!
• It's very hard to get a true red colour unless you use a lot of colour gel ... I ran out so Superman is pink :)
• Should practice the border on something else first instead of trying it straight on the cake.