Dad's Birthday Cake

Dad's a Jeff Gordon fan, so I made this cake for him after work today. Little did I know he took a trip to Florida, so he won't even see it for another 2-3 days! This was my first experience working with sugar sheets, as well as the Wilton tubed frosting. Wish I'd had more time to do everything I wanted to, but I don't think it turned out too bad for only having 1 1/2 hours to decorate it!

Basket Cake

I somehow ended up with an extra cake from my last baking spree. I needed to get it frosted today so I thought I'd try my hand at creating a basket cake. I didn't pre-plan the flowers very well. This is a fun technique, but dang, you gotta really like frosting to eat some of these cakes! *L*

Final Flower Cake

Tonight was my "final" for the Wilton "Flower and Cake Design" class. It was SO much fun! My cake had it's challenges but turned out pretty neat regardless. I grabbed the wrong size cake pan when baking the cake, so the top layer is only 1" smaller than the top, AND it was shorter than I expected. So all my royal icing flowers that I pre-made fit differently than I expected. I had fun playing with the borders, practicing a large variety of combinations before settling on the scallops with alternating stars. I used red, black, & white since I knew I'd be taking this to school tomorrow & wanted to use school colors. The next class is "Gum Paste and Fondant" and I can't wait!

Lil Red Riding Hood Cookies

I took a cookie decorating class to learn a few more tricks. I found it frustrating to be handed a piece of sugar sheet & told to "put it on my basket" without more instructions. Sometimes there is a lot of presumption on what students know! Luckily the little gal across the table & I were able to figure it out. Oh, and the stuff is breakable, so if you ever use it, don't fold it...... :)

We decorated "Little Red Riding Hood" cookies & I enjoyed the new tricks I learned. I love using the decorator bags for piping on the thick icing, but flooding the cookies just really doesn't work well with the bags. I think if I continue the cookie decorating I'm going to invest in a few bottles. The other students didn't have near the problems I had! But it was fun anyways.

I got my cookies home safely and I offered my son's girlfriend a cookie before thinking to take a picture. The missing ax was glittery-shiny before she ate it. I had to stop at the liquor store to buy some vodka for mixing my new edible glitters!

The Beer Cake

This was a fun cake to make! I made it Caleb's birthday, for former student & friend of my son.I frosted it at my daughter's & didn't have all the supplies I needed, so it's not supported. Lesson learned! I loved how it turned out, except for the handle. I learned better ways at my next class, so next time...