ALL MUFFED UP!

For the 4th class of the Wilton Decorating Basics class we are going to present our final cake for judgement. This cake is to include techniques learned over the previous three classes. Feeling like I wanted to present a finished final cake given the allotted time I went on an internet image hunt looking for a nice buttercream iced cake as my inspiration piece. After about an hour of looking I kept coming back to this one cake with large rosettes on the top using the large 1M icing tip traditionally used for icing cupcakes.

http://cafemunchkin.com/2009/05/11/chocolate-chip-coffee-cake-hersheys-perfectly-chocolate-chocolate-cakea-redo/

I wanted a softer color palet so I went with a soft tiffany blue with ivory rosettes. A few days before my final class I put together my ‘practice’ cake. I wanted to ensure that I’d be able to complete the project in the time given and wanted to make sure my skill was up to par for judgement. Here’s the journey of the practice cake.

Baked and leveled two 8″ round lemon cakes.

Cakes torted, filled with strawberry preserve, and stacked ready for icing.

Two batches of lemon buttercream – one in Tiffany blue to be used for icing the cake (royal blue + ivory) and one in ivory for the decorations.

Cake iced and ready to sit in the fridge for at least an hour to set the icing and prep the cake for decorating.

Out of the fridge and ready to practice decorating.

I can tell that based on the inspiration cake I should have 15 rosettes around the bottom edge of the cake. On my practice cake I only had 12 thus creating more surface area of the cake peeking through. It was pretty but I still had some tweaking to do. I also added some dots along the side of the cake just for my own interest.

Finished Practice cake!

Overall I was exhausted from having to repeat this whole process just the following day but it was well worth it. Because I took the time to practice beforehand I had a clear vision of what I was going to do, how long it was going to take, what I needed to watch out for and fix on the final presentation.

Here’s my final cake! Look at the fullness of the rosettes on the top vs. the practice cake. I also added some ribbon roses we learned in class that day and changed the bottom border as I ran out of ivory icing from making fuller rosettes on the top. Enjoy!

Happy Baking!