Shaggy Mums!

Lesson 3 - how to decorate cupcakes! We were taught how to make drop flowers (the yellow cupcake is covered in them), rosettes, pompom flowers (the light blue cupcake), 1M swirl (white cupcake), shaggy mums (dark blue cupcakes), leaves, and how to fill a cupcake! The shaggy mums looks a bit messy .. sort of like a mop of hair. But I really liked the drop flowers.

Lesson 2

This is the cake I prepared at the second cake class. We were to bring in two halves of a cake, and learned how to tort (level it), fill, layer, and top off with buttercream. We then transferred a pattern onto the top and filled those in. I decided to go with a fish pattern, whereas everyone else followed the book and went with the cupcake pattern. The colors turned out lighter than I would have liked..this just made it look like a baby shower cake.

Pastels

I made Oreo Cupcakes again - this time with light pink and green buttercream icing -- I wanted to practice making buttercream icing, the Wilton way.
I also experimented with the 2D tip that came in the Decorating Basics kit. I think I like the 2D swirl (the pink cupcakes) better than the 1M swirl.

The Wilton Method

I've been hearing a lot of that lately! I've decided to sign up for cake decorating classes at Michaels' Craft Store. My goal is to improve my piping skills and to get new ideas. The first class was today - we were to bring in cookies and ready-to-use Wilton buttercream along with our Decorating Basics kit..these were the cookies I piped. We didn't have much time...a lot of today's class was "how to make your own buttercream icing - the Wilton way", and how to make different consistencies of icing.

Happy Halloween!

So i'm sort of baked out this week! I made sugar cookies for my coworkers, mini-cupcakes for a Halloween office party, and cupcakes for our workplace bakesale where all proceeds went to United Way.

The cookies went fast which was good to see! I made them the same way as before.

This was my first time making mini cupcakes. I used the 1M tip to make swirls and added sprinkles on top.

The charity cupcakes were chocolate with purple icing. This time I used a mix of blue and red, but they came out a grey-ish color which wasn't so bad considering the theme. I topped these with the 1M swirl, sprinkles, and gummies (green witches and orange pumpkins). These sold out pretty quickly too which I was happy to hear. Always willing to lend a hand for a good cause :)

Happy Halloween everyone!

Oreo Cupcakes

I wanted to try something new today! I crushed up about 12 oreo cookies and put them into my regular cake batter. I then placed half an Oreo cookie (icing side up) into each baking cup before pouring the batter in. I also wanted to try my hand at making my own creamcheese icing (which turned out great) but was a little too sweet with the Oreo cupcake. The Oreo at the bottom moulded with the cupcake and was really soft.

One thing I would change -- I would add the Oreo bits to the top of the batter AFTER you pour it into the baking cups. This way, the bits don't sink to the bottom. And i'll keep the creamcheese icing to the carrot muffins :)

Spooky Cookies!

Who doesn't like sugar cookies?? I decided to make some this weekend to get into the Halloween mood, and test out some stencils I bought from the local bulk food store. I used white whipped buttercream, smoothed it out with an angled spatula, placed the stencil carefully over it (don't press too hard, because when you pull it off, some buttercream icing will come off with it) and sprinkled colored sugar into the openings. These were soft and delicious! I think i'll make them again next week and take them to work!