Recently, my good friend and I started taking the first Wilton Cake decorating course through Michaels. Initially I had wanted to jump right to the second course because the first course seemed very basic. I was right about the basic part, but we've learned a few handy tips we didn't know before and we've had fun goofing around. For our second class we were told to bring in a cake so we could decorate it. I made a simple 2-layer 6 inch vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. The instructor had asked us to make 2 batches of decorating icing, which is basically a buttload of shortening, icing sugar, extract and water. Ew. Something about eating icing made out of shortening does not seem natural. So I opted to make a buttercream for the icing and used the shortening icing just for the decorations.
Surprisingly, I think this was the first from-scratch cake I have ever made... possibly even the first cake I have made without the aid of my mother years ago. So I was going in not knowing exactly what to look for recipe-wise. There were a few problems with this cake, which is why I'm not going to post any recipes. I ended up searching around for awhile and settling on the 'versatile vanilla layer cake' recipe from Martha Stewart. Why I chose this cake, I'm not sure. Half of the reviews said the cake was fantastic, moist and a light crumb, and just delicious. The other half... said that it was an awful cake, extremely dense and had a cornbread-like texture. I suppose I was up for a challenge. Guess which side this cake fell on? The cake was extremely dense- which makes it ideal for layering multiple cakes, but not ideal for a relatively simple cake. It was even more dense when I tried a slice as it had just come out of the fridge. On the plus side, if you let the cake rise to room temperature before eating, it was much nicer. AND the actual cake had a very nice flavour, perhaps a tad sweet. Originally I had examined the cake upon slicing and thought that there was not nearly enough icing- a rookie mistake. However, the icing was rather sweet and I thought it turned out to be a perfect amount.
More Wilton Cake Course posts to come, I'm planning on taking the next course in April! Pin It
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