My Mom Makes Cakes: New Direction

I have completed the 8 weeks of decorating classes at Kake Kreations and have decided to continue with this new "Hobby". I love this new creative outlet I've discovered and I have decided to take some more "professional" type classes. Lets see where this take me. Well it seems to Encino!

My new class is with John at Cake Crumbs in Encino. John and his wife Susan make amazing cakes, like the ones you see in magazines. Really, their cakes have been in Brides Magazine, Modern Bride, etc... When I stumbled onto their website and discovered teach classes, I was very excited!

My first class with them will be Baking 101. I firmly believe that no matter how beautiful a cake is, it's what's on the inside that counts. Because, as much as I will Ooh and Awe over a beautiful cake I want to eat a piece! In my past classes I was would bring in a cake from home and learn different decorating techniques. If you've read my other posts you know I would spend a lot of time looking over recipes to find something interesting that didn't come from a box. For the most part they were really good, but I want to know how to bake a great cake!

The morning of class I arrive with great anticipation, I meet John and there is one other newbie in the class with me. We are given a few pages of recipes, a white cake, butter-cream, royal icing, fondant, etc.... This will be a two day course learning the fundamentals of baking and assembling a 3 layer cake. John gives us some basic knowledge of how the bakery works and we begin baking the cake. This recipe is one you fold a meringue into, now if I had found this in one of my previous searches at home, I would have been a bit intimidated and found something a little easier. So, this is great way to challenge my basic baking skills! With John's guidance it's not as difficult as I thought and we put the cakes in the oven, ready to move on.

Next the butter-cream, now this is one of the most important things to learn I think, how to make a great butter-cream. When I started taking classes, the hobby shop had me make bright white icing (you know the stuff on grocery store cakes), it's great for decorating with it has a firm consistency for holding it's shape. The kids love to eat it, but me, no thanks, yuck! So, I quickly found a recipe for butter-cream that I thought tasted better and it actually has some butter in it! It was a little more difficult to work with because it would soften with the heat of my hand, but, at least I could eat it. Now, I was about to learn how to make REAL butter-cream. Again, if I had seen this recipe online, I would have been scared out of my mind. But, with John's guidance, no worries! Well, just one problem, OMG!! how do I not lick every finger clean! This butter-cream has taken me to places I did not know I could go. It's like eating pure satiny sweet butter,Pure SIN!

I assemble the layers of my cake with the butter-cream getting it nice and level, into the fridge it goes to set until tomorrow when I turn it into art! We finish the class doing some fondant work. First, I learn how to make it, sans the Marshmallows. Looks easy again, but then everything seems easier when you have a pro helping you! Once the ingredients are combined the hard works begins. You have to kneed it just like bread, I actually got a bit of a workout, and every bit helps especially when in the end you get to eat cake. I make some little flowers that will dry overnight and the fondant goes in a bag for a rest, I need one too!

One really cool detail I learned from John was in making the base for the cake. Instead of just placing the cake on a cardboard circle, we use foam core board with a ribbon around the edge and then cover it in fondant. Little touches like this really can make the finished cake special!

Day 2, finishing the cake. The morning starts with royal icing, It's like a sugar glue. It will hold your cake to the board, the flowers on the cake and it's also used for piping decorations on the fondant itself. It dries really hard and quickly so you have to work pretty quick with it. The first thing we do is whip up a batch, now I had done this at home before. But, the great thing about learning with an instructor is the little details you pick up. Recipes will give you the info and it's pretty much up to you to get it right. But, when you have someone show you it really helps clarify things. Once the royal icing is done I pipe in little centers for my flowers, then set them aside to harden.

Step one, cover the cake with fondant. It's time to wake up the fondant, I take it out of the baggie and kneed, kneed, kneed, rest, again, agh! Okay, roll, roll, roll, agh! Now, a trainer would not consider this a workout, but, as a woman who will get to eat this cake, I do! Once my fondant circle is the right size, I place it on the cake and smooth. Except for the small patches that look like elephant skin (this happens when the fondant is a little dry and has little cracks, something I hope I'll get better at avoiding with more practice!) I think it looks great. But no worries, John has a trick for making it look perfect! Once the fondant is smooth and trimmed, I get to paint it! It's a really cool technique, you mix dry food pigment with vodka or in this case lemon extract. Now that my cake has gone from white to orange, I will finish it by using royal icing and covering it in squiggles called cornelli lace, the "elephant skin" appearance is virtually undetectable. I finish the cake by adding my flowers, and have created my first "professional" cake!

Wow, what an experience! I can't wait to take another class. But for now, I must go home and practice without John's guidance, I hope I remember everything!