Imaginative Dispostion, Creative Pleasures

Cakes!

Okay so my new favorite hobby is making cakes. I don't have access to a kiln any longer and painting just does not sufficiently fill my need to work in 3D. (It also does not taste as good.) So, I have taking up cake decorating.

It all started when my roommate Mary decided to save some money and make her own wedding cake. "What a fantastic idea!" I thought. And so, following in her example, I decided to make my own. It took me seven hours to decorate the wedding cake but in the end it cost me around 20 bucks, and I had exactly what I wanted for my wedding. Since it seems that I will never get around to posting pictures from the wedding...hopefully, these cake shots will tide some of you over. Here I am piping on the curly blue swirls. I have already covered the pieces in fondant and dusted the cake with a luster dust.




















The bottom three layers were styrofoam cake dummies while the fourth (and top) layer was made of white cake with blue swirls in it. That way we could still do our cake cutting.
I was pretty much just making everything up as I went along. I had spent many hours watching the food network and had some idea of how this might go. But it was still a learning experience. Piping can be very tiresome. Still, like I said before. I couldn't have been happier. It was perfectly what I wanted.
Shortly after moving here to Texas, Monte's birthday rolled around. In an attempt to make new friends in the ward and to throw Monte the biggest birthday celebration he had ever had...we had a large dinner party. The whole birthday was Asian themed so we cooked all kinds of Asian food and had chopsticks and little take out boxes for our guest. There was Asian candies and streamers and decorations. The whole living room and kitchen was a myriad of reds and golds. Most people in attendance thought that we were just really into the Olympics because Monte would not let me tell anyone it was his birthday.

But they got the idea when I surprised Monte by having everyone sing Happy Birthday to him while he stood next to a very large red velvet cake.
To really get an idea of the size of this cake you have to realize that the top section is two 8" rounds (so about the size that any normal birthday cake would be) and the bottom circle was 12" round. The candles were 4 inch candles as well. And the Asian topper was at least half a foot. It was a very large cake. I couldn't get too into the piping details on this cake because the icing was a homemade creme cheese frosting. The kind that goes perfect with a red velvet cake. I really should have taken a picture of the inside so you could see how beautiful it was when it was cut. BRIGHT RED!












Needless to say...the mere size of the cake turned some heads. It was so much fun!

Monte, seeing how much fun I was having making cakes started researching. He found a cake shop here in Austin that taught classes. As a Christmas present this years he bought me cake decorating classes: courses 1, 2, and 3. He has been very supportive thus far in helping me mix icings and prepare for my classes. I only have one cake to show as of right now. It was the cake we decorated the first class. They showed us how to torte, fill, and ice our cakes. Then we practiced with the round and star tips.
We had to share the icings and colors so all of our cakes looked pretty much the same (not much in the way of creativity yet) but they are more just for practice right now. This cake I ended up putting "Happy Birthday Rebecca" and taking it over to a friend's party a couple of days later. This week I will be making cupcakes and another cake. I will post pictures of my continued cake endeavors as I go. Course 1 is just the basic tips and how to make a rose. But in Course 2 we will do a lot of different kinds of flowers and Course 3 will be fondant and tiered cakes. This really was one of the best Christmas surprises ever!