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.

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.