Royal Icing Flowers

At the beginning of July a co-worker asked me to make a cake for both her mother's birthday and her mother-in-law's birthday. The two parties were two days apart. We decided to go with a flower theme for both of the cakes. An easy decision to make since we both work at a garden center.
The first cake I made was based on the final cake of the Wilton course two, Flowers and Borders. I made about 20-25 pansies with Royal Icing and I painted them to add in some details. The cake was two small oval cakes stacked and iced with a basket weave. Then flowers were added. I was told that mom absolutely loved the cake.


For her Mother-in-law I went with purple and yellow royal icing daisies. I wanted it to be different than the first so I decided on a square cake, and no basket weave. I was going for a simple yet pretty look. I was worried though about the petals of the flowers. It's always best to make more than you need in case there is some breakage. I think that I broke petals on about 3 or 4 of the flowers, so I was glad to have planned ahead.

My 1st Class Graduates

So the Fondant and Gum Paste course girls had their final class last night.
I was excited to see their final cakes. If I get permission from them, I may have to post the pictures to show everyone how well they did. I was definitely impressed. One of my students mastered the Fantasy flower, which is a hard one to do. It's not a real flower that exists in nature but it is a very pretty gum paste flower when done right. I do have to admit that I personally have not had much luck with this flower either. I guess I should practice so that I am able to show my next class a finished one done right.
The next class I am teaching is the 1st Wilton course - Discover Cake Decorating. It starts Tuesday Aug 4th, which happens to be my little brother's birthday. In the class I demo icing a cake. I'll have to make that one in honor of him, but I can't give it to him. I think shipping it to Vancouver would damage it.
In case I don't write an entry that day, Happy Birthday Lyle!!

Giant Cupcake

Giant Cupcake
Originally uploaded by sarahenrycakes

Who wants icing? This cake has it.
There is a shaped pan that you can buy to create this giant cupcake, but I decided to do it the hard way and save some money.
I used 2 eight inch pans and one 6 inch pan for the cakes and stacked them up to be carved to the right shape. Unfortunately there were some places where it needed filling in rather than carving, so I added carved off pieces of cake back on. But really in the end you cant see all that. The pink icing does a great job of hiding my construction.
The cake was for a good friend of mine who's daughter was turning two. Originally she had planned to make regular sized cupcakes herself for all the guests, but time and circumstances prevented that so she asked me to step in. Of course I was glad to do it.

Stanley Cup

Stanley Cup
Originally uploaded by sarahenrycakes

Catching up.....finally.
It has been a while since I made this cake. And really I should have posted it in time for the Playoffs in May. I do apologise for the quality of the picture. I was in such a rush the Friday that it was picked up. There was another cake being picked up the same evening, and I needed a box to fit this cake. I barely made it home from the store getting a box when the lady arrived to get it. After she got it from me, she was actually in the car almost pulling away when I ran out to stop her because I needed a picture. To top it off, the rain had just started! It was rather embarrassing.
Anyhow, the cake was an interesting one. I carved the cake to the shape and iced, then covered it in grey tinted fondant. In order to get more of a silver look, I used silver luster dust mixed with lemon juice and painted it on. The instructions for luster dust give options of clear vanilla, vodka, or lemon juice, and the juice was the only one I had in stock. Maybe I should have prepared myself more for the Friday rush and had the vodka ready, if not for the cake, then for me to wind down afterwards.

Class # 1

I had my first class last night. I had seven lovely ladies to teach. They were all very nice to me. Everyone knew that it was my first time so they went easy on me. The other class instructor thankfully came along to help point me in the right direction giving me pointers and helping to answer some of the class questions.
There are so many things that come with experience that I do not know yet. I guess that I am just going to have to work that much harder on selling more cakes just to get that experience. It would be a wonderful thing to be able to stay home and decorate cake full time instead of being an accountant by day and cake decorator by night.
I want to thank my friends for their support and well wishes on my first day. I needed the confidence boost. I'm not sure that I did as well as everyone said I would, but you have to start somewhere, and it can only get better. So I am keeping my fingers crossed that next Tuesday I don't feel like someone turned up the heat to 30 degrees while I teach.

Cake Decorating Instructor

Well, it's now official. As of last night I am signed up to be a Wilton Method Instructor (WMI) at the Michaels' store in Shawnessy. Quite some time ago, once I had completed the Wilton Cake Decorating courses, I applied through their website to be an instructor. There was no immediate need for anyone in the area that I live in, so I never heard from them. Until May. One of the WMI's that had taught me was leaving the position and she recommended that they have a look at what I could offer.
They saw my work on my site, I had a phone interview, and I got the position. I will be starting in July working on Tuesdays. The first course that I will teach will be Fondant and Gum Paste, and I believe that every month after that I will rotate through course 1, 2, 3 and then back to Fondant. So in August I will teach the first course, and so on.
This means that my already busy life is going to get just a little busier, but it is for the love of decorating. It means that I will get paid to do something that I love. That is the best job to have.
So if you want to learn how to decorate cakes, go to any Michaels store to sign up for a class. You may end up one day in one of my classes. I hope that I am as good at being a teacher as I am at being a student.

Here are a few samples of the cakes that I made in class while I was taking the courses.

The first course final cake, buttercream icing with buttercream roses.

The second course final cake, buttercream icing basketweave with royal icing assorted flowers.Course 3 we learned some fondant techniques and made a small fondant covered cake with fondant ribbons, bow, and decorations. And also in the class we were taught more flowers and how to make a teired cake. The tiered cake was the final cake for that class.
During the Fondant and Gum Paste course we learned more fondant techniques as well as how to use Gum Paste. My final cake was fondant covered with gum paste flowers and accents.

Topsy Turvy

I couldn't wait. There are other cakes that I have not yet added to this blog, and I am skipping ahead to the cake that I delivered today. I had to post it. I am so happy with it.
The only way that this cake was possible was because of other decorators out there. I have a friend who I was in the Wilton cake classes with who has a very large network of friends who she gets cake orders from. Like I do, she leads a very busy life and did not have the time to make this cake, so she passed the order on to me. I had never made a topsy turvy cake before, and was nervous.
Next, the thanks goes out to You Tube and a decorator who posts how-to videos. In an 8 minute video, I learned the tricks to get this done so that it stays standing. I would have never known.
And again, I also have to thank Pink Cake Box. The original picture that the birthday girl picked out was from their cake gallery.
So here's my version, done as requested by the sweet 16 birthday girl.

Flowers and Butterflies

Flowers and Butterflies
Originally uploaded by sarahenrycakes

I love making pretty cakes. Because I have boys, I have to rely on orders for girly cakes.
This cake was based on one from Pink Cake Box. They do beautiful work. The mom who ordered it has picked 2 cakes now from the site.
I was asked to do a one tier version to keep the cost lower. I decided to purchase decorative butterflies at a local dollar store, as making the sugar ones would be time consuming. They might be fun to make but time is a factor to consider. I seem to always be running out of it. Too bad it can't be purchased. I'd add it to by business expenses.
I tried to get creative when taking the pictures of the cake. it was a really nice day when I finished the cake so I took it outside to see if it might look good against a backdrop of my own flower pots. I guess another thing to add to my wish list is a studio area for picture taking. The list just keeps getting longer......

1000

I am thrilled!! Time to celebrate! People are getting the word out about my cakes. I officially hit 1000 viewers on Monday. In reality, I know that there have been more than that, because I started the official counter a few months after I began to write in the blog regularly.
Regularly? Really, can I say that? I have been so busy the last couple of months that I have not been keeping up with my posts. There should be one per cake, but I think now I am at least 3-4 cakes behind.
If it keeps going strong like this maybe one day I will be able to rely on selling cake to pay the bills. But for now, I still have to go to my day job everyday.
Thanks to everyone out there who is keeping up with my blog and passing my info along to those in need of cake. I truly appreciate it!!
Keep those orders coming.

Sara

Cupcake Flower Garden

Cupcake flower garden
Originally uploaded by sarahenrycakes

Again, people love to have cupcakes at birthday parties. I guess it's convenient in that no one has to cut the cake, they can just pull off whatever piece they want.
This CCC (cupcake cake) when to school with the birthday girl. She requested that I make the cupcakes really "girly" because there were some boys in the class that she wanted to gross out. I don't know if a flower design would have that effect on the boys, but if they didn't want to eat a pretty cupcake, that just leaves more for the girls in the class.