Cake Decorating Is Where It's At

I recently completed Wilton's Decorating Basics cake decorating class, and wanted to display my final cake project! I went with a fall theme and had a lot of fun decorating this cake. We had to come up with the design on our own, so I wanted something easy and   The cake itself was too dry, but I was really pleased with how the frosting turned out :)

Happy Fall!

Some close up shots of the frosting. I used a small star tip for the stars and border piping.

After graduating (it sounds so silly to say I 'graduated' from a cake decorating class) I decided to sign up for the next two classes: Gum Paste and Fondant, and Flowers and Cake Design. These classes teach more complicated cake decorating techniques, and show you how to work with gum paste and fondant. I've always been in awe of those fancy-schmancy fondant and sugar creations, so I was excited to learn it for myself.

Below are my button flowers from the Flowers and Cake Design class. These are made out of a 50/50 mixture of gum paste and fondant. Gum paste dries very quickly, so mixing it with the fondant helps the shape dry faster.

There are some crinkles, but I think they look okay for my first try :)

Here are my pansies made out of gum paste. We learned that gum paste can be rolled out much thinner than fondant, so it's used to create more delicate flowers and other detailed items.

For some reason this reminds me of the talking pansies from Alice in Wonderland. Completely random, I know.

Was anyone else slightly freaked out by these pansies as a child, or am I just weird? :) I'm okay with the latter.

Source

More pictures to come!