The Evolution of a Cake Decorator Wannabe

Many years ago, I was really intrigued by the idea of decorating cakes.

I wasn't too bad in the kitchen (after a pretty steep learning curve when I first moved out), but I wanted to try decorating cakes.

So, for my birthday one year, my mom bought me one of those kits from Michaels.

Here are two of my first attempts.

Jeremiah's birthday cake
March 2007

Elijah's birthday cake
March 2007

Needless to say, I've come a long way since then.

For starters, I actually took a class so that I could learn how to make icing. When I made the cakes above, I had actually run out of icing sugar and my husband had the car so there was no way I was venturing out in the middle of a Calgary winter with three kids to buy more. So it was REALLY runny.

Not only did I finally take a class, but Elijah took it with me as well. The next few pictures are from that class.

The first class is all about technique, buttercream decorating & making basic flowers.
These are the cupcakes that Elijah & I made one week.

This is the cake that Elijah decorated.
The instructor was a bit leary of having a 9 year old BOY in her class,
but he blew her socks off- doing things that she didn't think he could do.
We ran into her several months later at another class and she commented
 on how she tells everyone about this amazing 9 year old boy
 that took one of her classes!

Now, most of the people in my immediate family (i.e. the kids) absolutely LOVE all the icing that gets put on these cakes. The rest of my family, eh, not so much.

Needless to say, I don't get a lot of opportunities to practice- but I keep plugging away for my kids' birthdays.

Then, I discovered the wet-on-wet technique and started creating neat cookies like these.

Valentine's cookies for our monthly community home school meeting.

And then I discovered brushed embroidery and made these for my mother-in-law's 70th birthday party.

Sugar cookies with flow style royal icing and brushed embroidered.
Each one of these cookies took about 5 - 10 min. for the purple alone.

I even tried my hand at brushed embroidery on buttercream icing.
Not my favourite way to do it- very finicky.

Oh, and here is where the fun REALLY starts. I discovered- get this- PAINTING on my cakes!

It's a combination of coloured food gels and vodka (it thins it out enough to paint, but then evaporates quickly enough to not get the thing your painting really soggy while it waits to dry).

This totally takes things to a whole new level and makes them look absolutely amazing.

Here are my two creations thus far. The first is a birthday/farewell cake for my in-law's before they headed off to England, Scotland and Ireland with Graham's brother and sister-in-law.

The round 'log' is supposed to be a haggis, the blue/green/black
thing represents the ancient Keith Tartan and the sword
and other items are there for good looks.
Everything but the cakeboard is edible!

This 'plate' is made out of dried fondant and gum paste and then painted.
Seriously though, doesn't that look real?

The next cake was commissioned by Elijah for his year end party at the community classes that the boys go to on Thursdays.

Each piece represented something significant from the year. The hatchet was for the novel study that they did of 'The Hatchet'. The light bulb was for their unit study on electricity. The laurel wreath and spear represented their study of Ancient Greece. Finally, he wanted pencils and rulers (which has the teacher's last name on it for the 'brand') to stand for school in general.

The final composition.
I wasn't too thrilled with how it ended up getting laid out,
mainly because I didn't really scale things properly.

This is the plain brown fondant that I started out with
when I created the hatchet, ruler, spear and twigs.

This is how amazing they become when you 'paint' them.
I think I'm hooked on this new method. It REALLY makes
the pieces come to life.

It was really neat to make this for him- he was so happy that he couldn't stop grinning the entire way to school. So, I guess that even though it's not something that will be featured on TV for it's awesomeness- it was awesome for the person who wanted it.

And that is enough for me.

Keeping it real, by the grace of God...

Tammy