Decorating Course... Part 2

This post is long overdue, but I've been really busy making and decorating nearly 100 sugar cookies! I know it may not sound as much to you, but this was the first time I'd ever tried decorating, and in hindsight, I probably should have started off with fewer cookies to do! I took wayyy too long. I didn't even come online these 3 days! But it was fun, and that's what's important :) I can't wait to make some more, armed with complete knowledge of my mistakes, and what not to do, and hopefully take much less time!


Anyway, last week's class dealt with making fondant and marzipan, and covering a cake with it. Imprinting work on fondant was also touched upon. Here's the detailed account -



The first thing we did was make fondant, since it needed to be refrigerated, for an hour minimum, but usually about a day. One of the instructors was making it, and I it was fun watching him get doused in powdered sugar because of the fan. The weather over here is soo bad right now, we couldn't get by without the fan for even a few minutes! Anyway, he kneaded in all the sugar, and then refrigerated it. After about an hour, he kneaded the hell out of that fondant, then added my favorite color [PINK :D], and then rolled it out for the cake.




During the one hour wait, we made marzipan. The usual way to make it, apparently, since I don't know anything about that, is to cook the almonds, and get the oil out of it. But he only showed us a way to make easy uncooked marzipan, that took like 5 minutes! And it tastes good. I've never had much of a taste for marzipan, usually throw it away, so I was surprised that I kind of liked this.

He then proceeded to cover the cake we made last week [that had been doused with rum over the week] with marzipan, and this was the first time I'd ever seen such a thing happen, LIVE! Not as hard as I thought. Pretty easy, infact!

I know there's a huge crater in the middle of the cake, he told us what to do to prevent it, and how to cover it up when that does happen, but didn't want to complicate things by showing us, for the moment!



After that, he covered the cake with the kneaded fondant. I was glad to see that there were cracks all over, it doesn't start out being perfect! After a lot of rubbing, smoothing etc, using corn flour, and fondant smoothers, he achieved the perfect smooth fondant, as you can see below -



After a lot of watching, we were taught really basic crimper and insertion work.



And ofcourse, I went overboard with it! LOL, those imprinters, or stamps as I call them, were fun, and bought out the child in me! We also did insertion ribbons, which you can see in the bottom-left corner. Yeah! That! Living proof of my amazing photography skills!





There comes the piping! I had already done this in the other class, but it was taught very well here! I'm now sure that I can replicate all of those designs perfectly!



That was basically a combination of the shell, and the ruffles. But I loved the look, though it took me a while to get it right. You can't see the details well because of the mixed icing, and my awesome photography, but you can be sure I'll be doing a lot more of this design! :)



Since I had already done most of them, I got them right on the first try, like above, and was soo happy! Their instructions really helped! Next class is in 2 days, which is also my birthday :D :D
For the first time ever, I will be in school/college/class/work on my birthday, have always missed them before! That's how much I love this class!


P.S - I'm having some HTML problems on the comments, as you all can see. Anyone know how to fix it? Please send me a mail, if you do. Thanks :)


Read more on this course - Part 1, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11