Lesson 14: Character Cake - The Little Mermaid (Disney Princess Ariel)

Ok, I've made a few cakes during my cake decorating classes but this is by far my favourite cake!  It's not the most complicated or technical in execution but it's the prettiest!   The Little Mermaid is my favourite Disney cartoon and Ariel is my favourite Disney Princess back in the days when they didn't market the Disney Princess as a separate product.  

The cake was made with the Disney Princess Ariel Wilton cake pan and then decorated with buttercream.  The sides were iced with the Cake Icer Basketweave tip #789.  Then we outlined the face with black coloured buttercream and we filled in the banks with the Open Star tip #16.  The challenge was drawing the outline, filling the face in is time consuming and tiring but not too difficult.  Decorating the sides of the cake was equally as fun.  Creating the waves, starfish, fish and octopus just completed the mood for the cake.

  This cake just makes me happy looking at it. 

Lesson 13: Royal Icing Flowers

This lesson we learned to make flowers with royal icing.  Royal icing is really harder to get out of the piping bag than buttercream so my hand was a little more tired than usual after this lesson.  The cake was firstly covered with fondant then we created Lillies, Petunias and Ponsettias with leaf tip #67 using the Lily flower nail.  We were also taught how to pipe Morning Glory, Daffodil, Carnations and Chrysenthamuns (by far the trickiest).  I also finally learned the technique for Swirl Drop Flowers.  We did it on a hard surface like the table so it was easy to keep the tip steady on the table while we turned our wrist from 3 o'clock to 6 o'clock position to create the swirl. Try doing that on a cake that has buttercream on top without messing up!

The flowers made from royal icing take 5 days to a week to dry and we assemble it onto the cake using royal icing to 'glue' it on.  We also learned to create decorations from royal icing; outlining a pattern and then flooding the inside.  That's how we made what I call the 'Wilton bird'.

Useful tips: Keep the tips of your piping bags filled with royal icing covered with a wet cloth to prevent crusting.

Lesson 12: 2 Tier Buttercream Cake with Roses

There really isn't that much to explain about this lesson except we learned how to stack a 2 tier cake with dowels. The top of the bottom tier was not really iced, we merely smoothed the buttercream from the edge to the centre so it was lightly covered because the roses would cover the layer.

I'm still not happy with my roses as they always seem slightly flat. I need a bit more practice to be more consistent with the results.

Lesson 11: Three Tier Fondant Cake

I like having the opportunity to cover cakes with fondant because you learn how to correct mistakes like the fondant cracking.  Before, I used Icing Sugar to dust the surface of the table and everytime it got sticky, I added more icing sugar.  Now, fondant is made of icing sugar so the more you put on the table, the more it absorbs and the harder it gets.  So it becomes dry and when you put it over a cake, it may start cracking especially around the edges of the cake where it stretches the most.

I went on the internet to look for some advice and some people suggested adding some glycerine to the fondant which I did try and made a slight difference but the most effective thing to use is shortening.  Use shortening on the work surface and when you put it on the cake and little cracks appear, rub some shortening into the area and use your warm fingers to massage the crack shut.  It works!  Not perfect every time but it works.  The other trick is to be quick with the kneading, the rolling out and putting it on top of the cake.

This lesson was about making a 3 layered fondant cake and we had freedom to design it as we wished with some ideas from pictures of cakes by former students.  I made my cake the in my style which is simple and elegant.  Granted my style is neither cutesy nor is it opulent... it's just me.  Now on the other hand, if I was asked to make a cake for a kid, I would take a different approach. 

Some of my classmates in the replacement class did some pretty cakes especially the one with the picnic theme.  One of the teacher's assistants, her name (I finally found out) is Yun Jung is especially talented with sugar craft.  She can make the most realistic people models, the cutest animals and she's like 12!  Ok maybe 22.  I can learn a lot from this girl but I think being naturally artistic helps in using gum paste.  Here are some shots of the things she made on the cake.  I especially LOVE the dragonfly!

Anyway, here's my cake which was inspired by the colours on my daughter's blanket.  If I had more time I would have added white polka dots to the green ribbon.  I find myself gravitating a lot to butterflies nowadays.  Strange.  They are pretty to look at though. 

Lesson 10: Fondant

I had been really looking forward to this class.  Covering a cupcake with fondant is quite different from covering a cake with it.  My first attempt nearly ended in dissaster and I was trying to cover a cake that was 10" high!  At the begining of the class we were shown a dozen photographs of cakes that have been covered and decorated with fondant and were given an option to choose a design.

There were some really beautiful designs to choose from but I wanted to try a technique that was different from your standard covered cake with bows so I decided on one that covered the cake in angled stripes.  The colours for these stripes were inspired by a dress I saw recently that had a fabulous combination of lipstick red and fushia.  There were a few looks exchanged between the teacher and her assistant when I mentioned the colours as they were deep colours so required a lot of mixing and kneading to achieve.  I guess they were wondering whether I would have enough time as well to complete it within the 3 hours it was quite a bit of work.

I got down to business and while my other classmates choose some nice pastels which took 10 mins or less to mix into the fondant, I had 2 really deep colours to mix.  You have to mix the colours into small batches of fondant just in case you make it too dark... which wouldn't have been the problem in my case but I went with it  After almost 30mins I had my two colours and was ready to knead.  By this point, most everyone else was covering their cakes.

First I had to roll them about 4mm thick into long and wide pieces then cut them into equal lengths.  They also have to be the same width otherwise the cake is going to look like it came from the Mad Hatters Tea Party... hmmmm, might be an idea for another day!

This was time consuming.  I laid the strips in angles onto the fake cake.  It was actually a styrofoam square so that we could keep the cake for months.  The first method proved a little difficult as the striped bunched up at the top.  Crystal suggested we cut the strips shorter so there will be a little gap in the centre and that would be covered by the ribbon.  1 hour 45 mins later I had covered the cake in strips of red and fushia.  Next came the ribbon on the top which was relatively easy to do and then I made some mini cupcakes and marshmallows to decorate the corner of the board.

One of her assistants (I still don't know her name till today - must find out) was helping the rest with the decorations and helped me make a cupcake, a doughnut and 2 ice creams!  They were adorable!!  It's like giving playdough to an adult and given more time I am sure I would have liked to try to make a Sundae!

Lesson 9: All About Bears

When we got the brief for what we were going to do this week, I was a bit hesitant. Bears... it looks a little difficult. We had to pipe bears in all sorts of poses on top of the cake or on the side of the cake. I was not very confident going into class but still looking forward to it as I had something in mind.

We were given some photos of what some other students had done in the past so we had a starting board. I always love being given a brief, it allows me to work off an idea without too many limitations. As most of what techniques we were going to apply have already been taught, we had some time to practice icing a cake and decorating the mock cake. I tried a few different piping techniques and finally settled on a design that used swags/garlands and a bow around the cake. I love love LOVE creating ruffles with leaf tip #67. So I used this to create swags between each 'pillars' which I did with basketweave decorating tip #47.

Ruffles and ribbons - what a sweet combo.

If you don't want to buy a Cake Dividing Set ruler that has indications equal spacing sections that allows you to mark precise spacing for garlands, stringwork etc. then I suggest you start one pillar at 12 o'clock then at 6 o'clock first. This will neatly divide the cake in half. Next pipe a pillar at 3 o'clock then at 9 o'clock. Depending on how wide you want to space the pillars then you pick the centre between each pillar and pipe another pillar etc... I think you get the idea.

Young Hee hard at work putting the finishing touches on her cake

Gyeong Ha's Cake with Twin Bears

Aren't those little paws adorable?

Concentrating hard and trying not to mess up at the last part

The bears I did were ballerina bears and I wanted to use different tips to create different types of ruffles. For the pink tutu, I used #352 and for the yellow tutu I used petal tip #102. Then I piped in the top of the tutu with round tip #3. With these two tips I also chose a slightly different way of drawing the top in. One I use dot piping and the other I just drew it in. The ballet slippers were done with tip #2.

I added some balloons with round tip #12 and then added little love hearts sprinkled around the cake with tip #2. My other classmates had some creative designs too. Min Young, always adds her own unique twist to her designs which are very refreshing. Here's are some pics of her cake.

Min Young's cake with the pretty hearts almost blending together

I like how her bears are darker and they are chilling at the side. Min Young likes to step out of the comfort zone and that's a wonderful attitude to have for any kind of designer.tion

Wilton Method - Cake Decorating Schools in Korea

I've recently been asked about cake decorating schools in Korea but outside of Seoul.  The one that was asked by Stacey for a school in Ulsan, it's called JJ Cake.  For a more comprehensive list of authorised Wilton dealers and schools/instructors click here.  Korea is on page 14.

Lesson 8: Primrose, Apple Blossom, Violet, Wild Rose

The lesson started out with me being late then throughout the class I was just so clumsy. I bet the girls sitting next to me were wondering what was wrong with me. I was such a clutz that day. I dropped my flower nail, I nearly dropped the piping bag, I got icing in my tip case, I tripped over the table leg and horror of horrors, I smudged my cake. Sigh, the icing on the cake would have been for me to fall off my chair… with the cake.

I think I was just overly tired. It’s been a few late nights and then my son still doesn’t sleep through the night. This probably contributed to me being not quite myself. Probably attributed to why I found this lesson particularly hard. According to the other girls, they found the roses hard but to me, the roses were easy compared to the Primrose for example. I just couldn’t get it right for the longest time and finally when I was sort of getting the hang of the heart-shape of each petal, I couldn’t get the thickness of the icing right for each petal.

Reasons why the Primrose is a challenge for me:

1) Each petal is in the shape of a heart so that means different pressures and strokes to create just one petal

2) One part of the petal is thinner than the other

3) One part of the petal is more rounded than the other

4) I have to make 5 of these and make them look uniform (Aargh!)

Primrose (Yellow), Daisy (White and Peach), Violet (Purple)

That aside, the apple blossom is ok. Once I got the tip at the right angle to give the petals a bit more height it started to look much better. The Violet (#97) was probably the easiest and the Wild Rose was a larger version of the Apple Blossom. We also learned to pipe the fern with leaf tip #57 and the Violet Leaves with tip #103.

Crystal told me that I need to practice more. Yes mam!

Lesson 7: Basketweave and Daisies

I still remember seeing the Basketweave technique of piping buttercream for the first time.  I looked at it then tried to read how to do it and the words sort of just became a jumble of what came first, what came next, hold your tip at such a such an angle, woikjf inwleij kje iae oeetwe ij aijl and so on and so forth.  So boy was I happy someone was going to teach me!

And you know what?  It was easy to learn!  People who saw the cake would go, "Wow!  That looks really difficult" and secretly I want to nod my head, look really serious and go, "Yeah."  But I don't and maybe, just maybe a couple of people were thinking, "Show-off!".  Whatever.  The thing I like most about the basketweave (tip #47) is that it is quite versatile and a easy way to cover your cake.  White is very elegant and pastel colours just look like it came off the pages of Country Living magazine.

Next up were daisies.  Lots and lots of daisies.  These were really fun to pipe too. (tip #103)  Position your tip on the 2nd part of a 'V' and then pipe in a fairly upright position to give your petals that nice full looking petal.  Be sure to ease off the pressure on the piping bag as you drag the tip to the centre to get a nice narrow end to the petal.  We piped 2 sizes of daisies onto wax paper then transfer that onto a cake board and popped that into the fridge to harden.  Once the cake had been iced and decorated with the basketweave style along the sides of the cake then we place the daiisies on top of the cake.

Lesson 6: Ribbon Roses and Strings

In this course I will learn a total of 16…or was it 19(?) types of flowers. Whichever, 16 is a big number in my books! I was happy to learn the rose. So the ribbon rose is heaps easier than the Victorian rose. It’s a matter of squeezing the piping bag with consistent pressure and turning the flower nail smoothly. The flower looks like a rolled ribbon, hence the name. We used petal tip #103 for this and we also learned to pipe roses with that tip. The technique is similar piping the Victorian Rose.

To decorate the side of the cake, we learned to pipe strings. It’s really quite simple but to get your hand to behave and not shake is challenging. If you have bubbles in the BC then it may look like something has been taking little nibbles out of it. What I learned that was helpful to ensure that the string starts well is to touch the tip to the top rim of the cake then start squeezing and pulling the piping bag down and make sure the tip touches the surface of the cake at the bottom too so the string remains attached to the cake.

Here is a perfect example of imperfect strings

What I loved best about this cake is the ruffles! It is so simple and so pretty. Using the leaf tip #57 squeeze the piping bag and pull the bag with medium speed in the direction you want the ruffle to ‘roll out’ and Voila! I can think of so many ways to use this style.

Lesson 5: The Victorian Rose

 

This is the most beautiful cake I have made to date. It was almost painful cutting into it as it had to be eaten. Last week (I am finally up to date with my posting) we learned to pipe Victorian roses with the Wilton petal tip #97

They weren’t as difficult to learn as I originally thought but without my teacher showing me exactly how it’s done they might not have turned out as well. The Wilton book shows you the positioning of the bag and the angle of the tip with accompanying pictures. So if you follow you could create the rose, although you might find that it does not look as good as the picture. Even after seeing my teacher do a demo, my roses either looked flat or wonky. I was getting frustrated.

She came around to me and held my right hand and showed me how to pipe it. Learning to create roses, I realize that it is crucial where you position the tip and how much pressure to use when squeezing out the buttercream. Of course your left fingers (if you are a righty) have to twirl the flower nail smoothly too with the right amount of increments.

Sound hard? Well, it is not simple but it is definitely do-able! I chucked quite a few roses when I thought they look wilted or like someone trampled on them. Not pretty. The buttercream colours were a choice of pastel yellows, peaches and pink with an accent of violet. It made the cake look like it came right out of an English rose garden.

Can’t wait to try it somewhere else… a cupcake perhaps?

Lesson 4: Icing the Cake

I have this love-hate relationship with the drop flower tip. I never seem to get consistent results using this tip. A lot of the time the petals separate from each other when I lift the tip. I don’t know if this happens to you. If it does, I’d like to hear about it so I can have someone to complain with. Crystal tells me to let the tip dip in a bit (what a tongue twister) before pulling it up and I do try that, it works for maybe 3 and I am over the moon and then it screws up again. This is when working with American Buttercream is better because with a simple toothpick you can sort of rectify the bodged job. However with the meringue buttercreams…

We start off the morning with practicing some of the previous patterns that we’ve learned like the shell, reverse shell, floret, ribbon, rosebud… gosh listen to me! Rattling off all these styles.

Then we get started on practicing icing a cake. We get a round wood block which in another life may have been a chopping block. We are taught the way to hold the spatula, how to drop the icing on top of the cake and the gentle back and forth motions required ensuring even distribution of the icing over the cake all the while spinning the turntable in short and smooth jerks. Ok, maybe “jerks” is not the right word to use to describe the motion but I can’t for the life of me think of the right word just now. You know what I mean.

The hard part was icing the sides of the cake. Holding the spatula at 90 degrees to the cake turntable at the 6.30 o’clock position and giving the spatula a 30 degree angle to the cake you have to then use those gentle back and fort motions to ease the buttercream evenly onto the sides of the cake. And at the same time you have to be tuning the cake around. PHEW! If that’s not daunting enough, you have to finish each dollop of buttercream with a sweeping motion away from you don’t get any crumbs on the spatula. If you do, you run the risk of ‘contaminating’ the rest of your BC. I hate seeing crumbs on the icing. Absolutely hate it… but it’s sometimes unavoidable. You clean one up and you see another. So the trick is to be really generous with the BC when you put it on the cake and just slowly sweep off the excess as you go along.

I was quite happy with my final result which we topped with drop flowers. Whether I can do that again is another question. Practice, practice, practice!

Lesson 3: The Rosebud

I am really enjoying my lessons and to be honest, I would enjoy it more if I understood what everyone was talking about. One of my classmates, Gyeong Ha (경하) is a right Little Miss Chatterbox but not in an annoying sort of way. I actually really like the chatter that she generates and although I don't understand, from all the expression with that "ya's" and the "yo's" that I am hearing I'm sure it's interesting stuff. She has a friendly personality and is quite wicked with her rosebud piping techniques.

Gyeong Ha taking a pic of her half finished cake

She broke the ice with me right away with her basic English and of course that endeared her to me right away. She sits on my right. Another classmate is Hee Young (희 영) who is a really nice and very focussed. She doesn't speak any English (unless you consider Konglish) but that simply does not deter her from striking up a conversation with me. From Day 1, she has been talking to me in Korean while I pick up maybe 3 out of every 10 words that she is saying and try to make out what she is saying from 3 or 4 sentences then I will either say "Mullayo" as in "I don't know" or do my best to answer in my broken Korean. Charrayo! (잘아어!)

I think of her as the Mama of the group. Not so much as because she brought her 9 year-old daughter for the first lesson who was quite well behaved and patient which is unusual for a 9 year-old (most of us are Mamas there) but she just looked out for me from the offset. When teacher tells us what tips to use, she sometimes forgets to switch to English and I understand most of the numbers albeit a little slower but sometimes when I am focussed on practicing, I don't hear it and Hee Young will show me which one to use. She's very dedicated and takes a 2 hour journey each way just to come to class. She's learning to hopefully start her own home baking business soon. Go Hee Young!

Hee Young decorating with 100% concentration. She's piping dots which they call 'teng teng' in Korean. All I was hearing at one point when Crystal was giving instruction was "(blah blah blah) teng teng (blah blah blah). [Repeat]". So I had to ask what this 'teng teng' was as no one thought to translate.

So in Lesson 3 we learned to pipe the Rosebud. There's 4 steps to it:

1) Base Petal

2) Overlapping Petal

3) Sepals

4) Calyx

No, I did not translate this from Korean... I have the book. It's in the Wilton Method of Cake Decorating: Course 2. The trick with this is getting the angle for the overlapping petal right. I get the best results when I don't let my tip touch the decorating surface and let the icing roll the base petal over. The sepals and calyx were easy. We piped these on to baking paper that was laid onto cake boards and made 2 colours of the rosebuds and put the in the fridge.

The reverse shell and the 'teng teng's'

After that, the teacher and assistants (there are 2... or 3) helped us ice our cakes. Once that was done, we piped a decorative edge on the base. I did the reverse shell which is my favourite so far. Then it was time to take the rosebuds out of the fridge to place artistically on the cake. Very pretty. I brought the cake out for a party I had the next day and no one dared to cut the cake! I plunged the knife in in the end so people could help me eat it.