Night Two of Cake Decorating

For our second night of spectacular cake decorating we had to actually make a cake to bring to class. Since I love trying new things, mom and I decided to make a Mocha Dream cake. The batter smelled so good! The coffee! The chocolate! It doesn't get a whole lot better than those two scents mingling together. Mm! All went well until mom realized that she had not used these fancy strips that go around the pan while the cakes are baking. You dip them in cold water, ring it out, and then stick them around the pan. This emits magic powers, and your cake will turn out smooth on top -- no mound! It makes it bake evenly through. When the edges are baking faster than the center the batter pushes up creating a mound on top of the cake. Well, this way mom and I could practice the technique to chop off this mound in case the strips are not used. 

Mocha Dream cake is being assembled!

Since I take things literally, which I often shouldn't, the cakes were kept in the freezer until it was time to leave (she said the colder the better when it comes to decorating!). Mom wanted to take them out, but I said no! She said cold! Well. Even knives have a hard time sawing through boulders. Not only did we have to cut off the mound on top of the cake, but we also had to cut our cakes in half -- length wise. I bought this fancy cake slicer thing, and even with two of us sawing together it took a good ten minutes to get our cakes apart. And they looked a hot mess. Mine had a hole in the bottom, and mom's cut went from horizontal to straight into the board. It was kind of funny once we thought about it. I chuckle now when thinking back. Lesson learned! The fridge will suffice when it comes to products being cold! Anyway, once that was all done we have to fill our lovely cakes with the most wonderfully fragrant raspberry filling. The smell was intoxicating! So I made my well of frosting and filled it in with raspberry deliciousness. Next we had to put the tops back on, and then pipe the frosting on the top and then on the sides. I learned great techniques on how to frost without getting speckles of cake in the frosting. You just throw a giant amount of frosting on, and do not let your spatula touch the cake, or lift the spatula with frosting attached to it. Just keep smearing it around until you can safely lift off. Frosting the sides is about the same. I learned how to control my pressure to make the frosting even and fancy. Then! Once the frosting is dry you put a piece of parchment paper over the cake and gently smooth it out with your hands. This takes away all spatula marks. Genius! (This technique will come in handy when I am making Sue's wedding cakes!)

Once the cake is properly set and looks completely professional (they really did!), we learned a new decorating technique. The kit came with an outline of a cupcake. We traced this cupcake with piping gel and put the image on the cake. Then all you have to do is fill in the outline....and it looks like you put in painstaking hours to make it look so perfect. It was easy. Except that my filling ended up looking a bit like intestines instead of fluffy cupcake frosting. Next time they will look stellar, I'm sure.

Mom working hard on her cupcake

Her final product. Pretty good!

My cupcake!

This class was a lot of fun, and I anticipate next class will be even better. We learn how to make flowers and leaves from frosting. This should be interesting. :)

Mom and her cake!

When we got home I dove into the cake. The flavors were quite interesting! We had made two different kinds of frosting, mom wanted almond and I wanted vanilla. Our frosting was too thick, so we ended up thinning out one of the batches, and left the other thick. This meant we mixed and matched the frostings.... I have to say that all those flavors mixing together was kind of gross...in the sickly sweet sense. It doesn't help that the frosting we are supposed to make is made with crisco instead of butter (WHHAAAA??!!!!) Crisco-cream is gross. Butter-cream will always be my frosting of choice even if it makes the frosting a touch more yellow. It's definitely worth it, I tell you!

Me and mine!

This really hasn't stopped me from eating the cake though :)

It was really pretty when I cut into the cake..so many colors! Easy on the eyes, but a bit busy for the taste buds. I am definitely going to try making this cake again without all the extra flavors. I bet it's extraordinary.

It's so pretty!

My slice