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.