Cake Decorating Class

I have always wanted to take a cake decorating class.  I see all these amazing cakes on Cake Boss, Ace of Cakes, and Pinterest and I am envious of their talent.  Now, I don't plan on going profession with any newly learned decorating skills, but it would be nice to make some nice gifts or cakes for my children's birthdays.

I am taking the Wilton Basics class from our local Joann's store.  Yesterday was my first class.  I convinced my friend Jen to take the class with me.  We both have little ones and don't get out just to ourselves very often.  It is nice to just spend time with each other without little ones running around.  Jen has some experience decorating cakes, but she wanted to learn all the ins and outs.  I will have to convince her to send me some pictures of her cakes and a mini tutorial as they are amazing!

Let me share with you some of my first attempts at decorating and a great video tutorial on putting together clean icing bags.

The first class showed you how to use the tips and prepare you for baking a cake.  Since we didn't have a cake made yet, we brought cookies to learn how to start decorating.

Here are the cookies that I decorated during class.  All I had was white icing on hand, but the instructor was nice enough to let us borrow some of her colored icing to try a few different designs.

The top cookie is meant to be a ladybug, it would look much nicer in red and black.  The bottom one is supposed to be a baby carriage.  I think these look good for my very first attempt with using a decorating bag.

I brought home my supplies and the kids were anxious to see what I had created.  Really they just wanted to taste test.  I wanted to try a new technique I saw on Pinterest to put icing in the bags without getting the bags dirty.  Check out the video to see how.



I wanted to check and make sure this worked before sharing it.  It works fabulously!  I will never put icing in a bag the traditional way again.  Too much cleanup for me!

The white icing was put in the bag the traditional way and already has some dried icing at the top.  The colored icing is in the saran wrap.  When I am out of icing, I just remove the saran wrap and clean the tip.  I love easy cleanups.

After I got my new icing colors, I had three helpers right by my side to learn and eat!

 Ryan

 Evan

Anna

 Here I am with Ryan and Evan, showing them how to hold the bag correctly.

Ryan took to decorating right away.

 Evan's hands are so tiny that he had to double fist it to get it to work.  He did it a couple times and gave up.

 Evan would rather watch Ryan and I decorate and just stand by salivating like a little puppy dog.  He patiently waited though.

Anna on the other hand was caught red handed faced.

Both Ryan and Evan proudly showed off their cookies prior to gobbling them down.  Then the sugar induced hyper activity began.

Here are a few of the cookies that I made with colored icing.  I will keep practicing and hopefully get much better.

Next Monday is my second class.  I can't wait to share with you all the new things I learn!