I took a cake decorating class at the local technical college. It was for 2 hours, every Wednesday for four weeks. Through my years in college (8 total so far), I have learned that there are good teachers and there are bad teachers. I didn't have a very good teacher but I was encouraged to seek out information on my own, just for educations sake. Fortunately, what the class did teach me was to not be afraid of all those decorating tips! Really, it was a very basic decorating class, which is exactly what I needed. As much as I wasn't impressed by the teacher, I did learn a thing or two...
1) I learned about crumb-coating. I wish I had known about crumb-coating YEARS ago. Basically, you frost and coat the cake with a thin layer, not worrying about being perfect. Once you have a good layer on the cake, you place the cake inside a freezer or refrigerator and cool the cake until it's time to decorate it. Once you are ready, pull the cake from the cold storage and frost it with the decorative frosting. The crumb-coating will eliminate any crumbs from getting in your decorative frosting. This is SO SIMPLE and yet, until class, I totally missed it.
2) I learned how to make buttercream. This may be a skill I eventually would have picked up but after tasting real buttercream (not from the store), I can see why it is a bakers choice. It is creamy and delicious and can be cooled or heated to reach the desired consistency.
3) I learned how to make buttercream roses. Why is this important? As mentioned above, it got me over my fear of decorating tips! Once you get a buttercream rose down, you realize that nothing has to be perfect to look good and a cake is like a canvas, open to the artist's interpretation. Different tips can teach the artist different techniques. It was a fascinating adventure to try all my decorating tips and see their results.
After the second class, I began practicing a few nights a week at home. I made my own buttercream and practiced until I felt I could do roses, no problem. I even taught my daughter and a friend of mine how to make them. It was very exciting to pass the knowledge along.
The fourth and final class came. For our certificate, we had to decorate a cake, on our own, without the teacher's assistance. I had an idea in my head of a field of sunflowers. Though I had not made sunflowers in the class or at home, I was confident that I could do it.
Although I would have liked the base colors of the cake start with green (for the field) and fade to blue (for the sky), I think the cake turned out fairly well. The teacher let me know that my centers could have been done with dot tips, starting large on the outside and working my way in with smaller dots. Next time....
