Thursday, May 7, 2009

Cake baking/decorating course, super-confident me

As I've mentioned before, I have just started to go beyond just baking the cake, and have ventured into the decorating area! Its been about a month since I decorated my first cake, which tasted great, and had a yummy mango curd filling, but was a failure in that the buttercream tasted off. I scraped it off later, and covered with ganache so it would be edible. Here's a pic -

My first decorated cake!!! - 07.04.09

I must warn you, long post coming up!!
After this I was on the lookout for courses that would improve my miserable skills. While I've joined a fondant/gumpaste course, it won't be starting up until next month. A little more looking around and I found a 3 hour course on cake baking and decorating. Though I didn't want to learn anything about the baking, I figured I'd go for the decorating, and may pick up a few tips on the way. Which I did! The lady added glycerine to the cake batter, she said it helps with the shine. Has anyone heard of this/is it recommended?

It was after the baking of the cakes was over that I started feeling nervous. And it wasn't even like it was supposed to be an in-depth course. Just the basics. But my mind was totally screaming - 'get out now, fake an illness'. Somehow I managed to shut that voice up, and braved on.

DSC02322

Yeah, that's whipped cream, for some reason buttercream isn't really popular here in India, all of the bakeries that I've asked said they use whipped cream or ganache.
Anyway she taught us a number of ways to use the star tip. Did you know there are more than 10 ways to do that! I got about 5 done almost perfect, as you can see in the picture above. The rest... well lets just say that 5 ways are enough for me. If you want to learn this, there's a very informative video on youtube, that has all the different ways. I can't seem to find the link right now, I'll update as soon as I do.
Update - found the video

Basketweave

That's the basketweave, which I felt was the easiest tip to use, but still giving the most elaborate results. I got it done in 2-3 tries. :) I could also understand the pain of doing this all over the sides of a cake. I'm in awe of people who do that everyday.

Fresh cream cake on pg 1

That was decorated by another student, who seemed to only want to use the leaf tip all over :P. We learnt how to use fruits as a filling, something that I will begin to implement ASAP. At this point I feel its necessary to say that though I've done a lot of baking over the past year or so, I've only just started cakes. So even that was something new for me.

Eggless Chocolate Cake

Obviously I've saved the best for the last. The rose. That rose. On the cake. Is mine :-) I was soo proud. Since I was doing so well with the rose, she gave the sides to the previous girl's sister, who seemed to love the grass tip :P What is it with those two and using just 1 tip. But I did notice that while the rose looked exactly like how she showed us, the method and the final outcome was quite different from what I've seen on YT videos that teach the same thing. Anyway, I was happy with it as it was, and now I have the confidence to use the YT videos to learn, and not just watch.

So with this course I may not have learnt too much, but it gave me the much needed confidence boost to enter in into the decorating area. Thanks, Mahek. :-)

8 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for de-lurking on my blog and for you commenting. I love knowing I have readers all over! Our wedding cake was done in basket weave. I love that look. Great job. Happy cake decorating--that is one area I stink! (Although someday I would like to take some classes.) Cute blog, I just added it to my reader.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh wow, thank you for commenting on my blog.
    You're my first subscriber. Yayyy
    Cake decorating is easyy, it just takes a push in the right direction to gain confidence.
    And you'll totally be able to do it, considering the constant creative ideas you get for your boys, like the puppies made out of fruit [my favorite], and the rice krispie treats you keep using in various way.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a great job! The cake looks so good, I'd like to try a piece! ;))

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you Fabjena. If you want, I can mail the recipe to you. Then you can enjoy them too :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Avanika!! You doing so much at 19?? Awesome, awesome!! That basket weave and the star tip designs look very well defined I must say.I like only whipped cream for cake topping and been trying to find out ways to stabilize the same to get that perfect finish you see on cakes done by professionals. Have succeeded very rarely as the cream goes soft or grainy when I try to pipe. HELP!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi,
    Could you please give me the details of the class you took? I'd totally love to 'hone' my cake decorating skills (not that there are much to begin with :P)I'd really appreciate your help :)
    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete

Please leave your thoughts below, I'd love to hear from you :-)

Related Posts with Thumbnails