Wilton Course 3: Fondant and Tiered Cakes

Right now I am taking Course 3 of the Wilton cake decorating classes. This is the first of my class projects.


It was an 8x8 chocolate cake with cappuccino filling, covered in fondant. It was way easier to cover a cake with fondant than I had imagined it would be. I took some creative liberties with the design because I didn't like everything about the example in the book. I like mine better. :) The full bow on top was something to learn from. I'll do a few things differently the next time I try one of those. I gave this cake to Raysha, the best India roommate ever, for her birthday.

Birthday Bash: 2nd Edition.

This weekend I went to Saskatoon so that I could make the cake for Cadence's second birthday party. I hope that it will become a tradition for me to make this Little girl's birthday cakes. I made a cake for her baby shower and I also made her first birthday cake. I decided this year to make a two tiered cake for a two year old girl. :)

The cake

The kid and her cake.

The cake on the kid.

Opening up her gifts.

Making room for herself in the car.

Happy One Hundredth!

Yesterday Bella Dobni, one of the residents of the care home where I used to work, turned 100. I had decided some time ago that I wanted to make her a cake. It's not every day that you get the opportunity to make a hundredth birthday cake!



The base tier was chocolate fudge, the middle tier was butter pecan and the top tier was french vanilla. It was iced in butter cream with fondant numbers and a fondant banner. It was my first time using real flowers on a cake. I wasn't completely satisfied with how it worked out but it was something to learn from for the next time. The evening before I went to five different stores before I found white roses. I was beginning to worry but my perseverance payed off and I found some pretty nice ones. The care home put on a big BBQ to celebrate and all of the resident's families were invited. It is apparently going to become an annual event. The cake was a big hit with everyone. Bella loved it which made me very happy.

Bella with her cake. She looks pretty good for 100!

Cake Wrecks

Last week Lisa introduced me to the Cake Wrecks Blog. The subtitle of the blog is "When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong." This blog has given me much amusement. Go check it out, it's worth it!

Another Cake :)

On Sunday night my friend Jennifer Wallace sent me a message on facebook asking if I could decorate a cake for Jessica, her sister in law, and her daughter, Addyson's baby shower that was going to be on Friday evening. In the back of my mind I knew that there was a possibility that I would be moving to Regina this weekend but I agreed to make the cake anyway. Jennifer gave me creative license on the project and this is what I ended up with.


It was two layers, one chocolate and one vanilla. Iced in butter cream and the details are done in fondant. Jennifer did tell me that Jessica's favorite color is blue even though Addyson is a girl. So I tried to incorporate the blue without making the cake look like it was for a baby boy. The little pink footprints were made using a mold. The cake was a big hit at the shower which made me happy.

August Long Weekend - Parry Reunion '08

On the weekend we surprised my grandmother with a family reunion. Her plan was to spend the weekend at my aunt's cabin up at Crooked Lake but what she didn't know was that all of her grandkids and great grandkids were going to be there. The only person missing was my Uncle Garth who was unable to make it. The idea was hatched by my cousin, Ashley and my sister, Michelle a few months ago. It all came together pretty well. I was convinced that someone had spilled the beans and that Grandma knew what was going on but apparently she was caught completely off guard. It had been many years since the entire family was in the same place at the same time like this. It was such a wonderful weekend for everyone I think. It was really nice to catch up with everyone and meet some of the newer family members whom I hadn't yet met. It was also great meeting my cousin, Rebecca's fiancé, Geoff and my other cousin, Ashley's boyfriend, Carlos who happens to be from Guinea-Bissau and speaks Portuguese. Speaking with him in Portuguese made me very happy! I posted a ton of pictures on facebook so go check it out.

Group shot of the entire family taken on Saturday.

This is the cake that I made to celebrate the occasion. Any excuse to make a cake! This was my first attempt at a tiered cake, turned out pretty good I think.

Birthdays Birthdays Everywhere

Yesterday was a very special day. Most importantly it was my brother, Dirk's 30th birthday! Happy Birthday Dirk! He had a wiener roast party with some friends from work on Friday night and so I made him a cake. He is a little bit of (and by that I mean HUGE) Star Wars fan. So I decided I wanted to do something Star Wars related. Here is what I came up with.

R2D2

I got a little creative with this one. There are actually FIVE cakes that make up R2D2. The body is 3 8" round cakes stacked on top of each other. I baked a fourth cake in a pyrex bowl for the head and his legs were baked in a long loaf pan. I then cut and shaped the loaf into two legs. I inserted 4 plastic dowels into the 2 bottom round cakes and place a cardboard circle for support before adding the third round cake and the bowl cake on top. I then inserted a long plastic dowel through the middle of all four cakes to give it some stability. I also inserted plastic straws down the length of the legs to add support. I iced it with white and grey buttercream icing. The detailing is done in blue and grey fondant and then some grey buttercream piping. I was running out of time and icing near the end so the legs and some of the details are not as nice as I would have liked. It was my first time using fondant and making more than a two layer cake. Both worked out pretty well for me and I'm looking forward to playing around with the techniques on future cakes.

The other reason that yesterday was a special day was it was Canada's 141st birthday. I didn't make a cake, too much R2D2 left over! I did go watch the fireworks with Dirk and his friend Devon though. I like fireworks. Good times. Happy Birthday Canada.

Gum Paste Roses

Micheal's Craft Store offered a one night class on making gum paste roses. There were only two of us who took the class which in my opinion was a good thing because the instructor was more available than if there had been a whole room of people. It was fun to learn how to work with a new medium for cake decorating. Working with gum paste is actually a lot like working with play dough...a more mature play dough I guess you could say. In two and half hours I was able to make 4 roses. Keep in mind that I was just learning how to do it so it took longer than simply making them. I think that with practice it would take less time but it is certainly a painstaking process. I was pretty pleased with the way they turned out for being my first attempt at them.

Let Them Eat Cake!

In October Monica Taylor invited me to take a Wilton cake decorating class with her at Micheal's. Monica and I took Course 1 together. Course 1 is basically an introduction to cake decorating. I've decorated a number of cakes before and so I really didn't know what I would get out of the class. The long and the short of it is that I had a blast. I learned a lot of neat tricks and techniques for cake decorating. I also learned how to make roses which was probably the highlight for me. In course 1 we decorated 3 cakes, one per class minus the first class which was all demo. I only actually finished one of those cake for various reasons. It was the first one we did and was pretty basic using the star tip technique.

My only finished cake from Course 1.

My final cake from Course 1 that I never finished.

Then in November I took Course 2 by myself. Course 2 focuses on boarders and flowers. Each class in Course 2 was spent learning to make various flowers out of Royal Icing. I learned to make Rosebuds, Chrysanthemums, Apple Blossoms, Violets, Victorian Roses, Daisies, Daffodils, Pansies, and Primroses as well as how to do basket weave and rope borders. I think that I enjoyed Course 2 even more than Course 1 if that is possible. I learned so much in both classes and had a lot of fun doing it. At our last class we were to assemble our grand finale cake that incorporated all the techniques that we had learned throughout the course. My cake was assembled at home but I did finish it. I think it turned out pretty good. But really who wants to eat something that looks that pretty?



On Friday I made a birthday cake for Lisa. It was basically what my final cake from Course 1 would have looked like had I finished it but with the added touches of basket weave on the sides and a rope boarder.



Micheal's isn't offering Course 3, which is on fondant and tiered cakes, before I leave for India but I am taking a one day course on how to make roses from gum paste this upcoming Tuesday. Should be a good time. I'm not sure that I'll have reason or time to make and decorate any more cakes before I'm off to India in a little over a month but I hope to do lots more cakes in the future.

First Birthday Bash!

When I found out that Lisa wasn't going to plan anything special for Cadence's first birthday I asked if I could. So I got some decorations, baked a cake and told Lisa to invite people. I'm pretty sure she invited close to 2 dozen people but in the end only one couple came with their 5 month old son. At the last minute Lisa invited their "across the street neighbors." And so they came over and helped us sing happy birthday and eat cake. Lisa and Paul had prepared a lot of food but with the small amount of people we didn't eat much of it. Cadence loved the helium balloons, they were not only fun to look at but they were also fun to bat around. I think she got more amusement out of the balloons than any of the gifts she was given.

This is the beautiful birthday girl standing up in the kitchen.

I was having a little fun with static electricity. :)

This is the birthday cake.

She wasn't sure what to think when everyone started singing happy birthday.

Paul ended up blowing out the candle but she sure wanted to get her hands on that bear!

I guess it passed the taste test.

I didn't think about making a chocolate one in order to make her face look more messy. There are some crumbs there if you look close enough.

After eating cake she got to open presents. She wasn't extremely into it.

Lisa ended up opening this one. Cadence tore the paper but only a little.

Turned out the tissue paper was the best gift of all. The little blue shoes were part of my gift to her.