Decorating Course... Part 11

You want to read this post! Atleast, I want you to! I'm very excited to show you guys my cake!! I've been waiting since forever, to catch up on my missed classes, then be able to blog about this session. Now the time has finally arrived!!!

We had to decorate our cakes as we wished, using fondant and gumpaste flowers!! I made this cake about 3 months ago, and I had the comfort of being able to do it at home instead. I was still recovering during this period, and was very weak due to the sickness. I decorated this at home, keeping a relaxed pace up. It was ok to miss class, since all we had to do in the entire class was decorate!! I took a longg time to make the flowers, I don't know whether to chalk it up to the weakness, or lack of practice :P :P

One thing I missed out on, doing this at home, was taking everybody else's suggestions. Everyone in class is very helpful, and so this cake is completely, solely ME!!

So enough blabbering, and on to the cake!!!




Ta-da!!!!

What do you think? I want honest opinions! I was going for the marbled look on the fondant, and liked how it came out, though next time, I will try and make it more pronounced!! Yes, this cake too is pink!! Now you know my favorite color :P
I had a few problems with the carnations, in that many of its petals (?) broke off, mainly because of me. I didn't store them all too well, before placing them on the cake. It's very amateur-ish, I know! I have a LONG way to go before I get those perfect cakes, I made like a million mistakes on this one!!

Here are some more pictures -


Detail


To give you perspective!

Anyway, while I'm know this cake isn't anything spectacular, I am very proud of it nonetheless!! It's my first time (A) :)

P.S - I know this post is FILLED with exclamation marks, I just couldn't control myself! There's one again :P

Read more on this course - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

Decorating Course... Part 10

This is the second class that I'd attended recently, to catch up on my missed ones. And it was in this one that I could really see how my 3 months of efforts would shape up. Until now, we were just making white flowers, which though looked good, didn't really look like the real thing. And many of the times, I simply wasn't convinced about the resemblance to a particular flower. Some just looked like little kids interprations! And I was bored! Bored! Probably you were too, viewing ALL those white flowers!

So this week, we actually got to see how our flowers would look, all colored and airbrushed and everything! And boy, were they pretty!! This was what convinced me that I was actually learning something productive! Read on, and you'll see how. Unfortunately, this was the ONE day I forgot to take my camera, the day I needed it the most. Sorry, the pictures aren't too clear, they were taken by my phone camera!

But first, we had to make some flowers!! First up, the briar rose, which looks, and is made similar to the azalea.


The petals being made.


All assembled!

Up next, one of my favorite flowers!! The poinsettia!! It was soo easy.


It may not look like much now, but wait for a bit, and you'll see what I'm saying!


The main essence of this session was coloring the flowers, i.e making them 100% ready for display. Most of the flowers coming up were colored by an airbrush, however, I don't plan on investing in one soon, not until I perfect the flowers atleast.

Most of the flowers we colored -


A different view to give you perspective -




The lily.


Hibisbcus. I love this flower, in real life. One of my favorites!


The azalea!


Carnation. Super blurry picture, but I love making this flower. So easy, and yet so pretty!


The rose! I'm going to start handing these out to people, they are so adorable! :)


The Briar Rose. Never heard of this flower before, but it sure looks elegant!



Aaand I've saved the best for the last! The best looking flower! Don't you agree?



Read more on this course - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 11

Decorating Course... Part 9

Yes!! You read right!! This series is finally back! After 3 long months, I recently went back to my decorating classes, to make up for the classes I missed out on! And it was SO much fun!! Once my exams are over, I'm going to be doing a lot of decorating!! :)

So I went to my class, without having had the time to brush up on my skills. The last decorating I'd done was atleast a month ago! And they could see that!!



It started off with them teaching us how to make an orchid, one of my favourite flowers, for sure!! I was super-excited to know that I'd be learning to make them!! And the best part is, the flower was pretty easy!! I mean, just look at the one I made, after not having touched gumpaste for oh so long!


I also realised how different it is, working in the cooler climate. Everything dries up soo much faster as compared to the monsoons!! You can see that in the zillion crazks on my flower! That was just a learning step though, I soon figured out that I need to work fast, fast, fast in this weather!

And then, we learnt how to make a communion cake, for which we were taught the book cake, something I've wanted to learn since forever!!



All the toppers!! The trick they gave us to make pages is oh so nifty! I'm going to put up a post on it soon!! Here's the assembled cake, with a few extra random stuff popped on it my over-enthusiastic people!!



This class was soo much fun! I'd really missed them! Can't wait to get back at decorating.

P.S - This is a scheduled post. With my exams coming up, I have no time to make the usual rounds, chat online, and post regularly. My apologies to everyone! Can't wait to get back to the 'real' world, after exams finish!

Read more on this course - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 10, Part 11

Decorating Course... Part 5

After last week's cake, I was very excited, since that went so well, and we were to learn gumpaste. I was thrilled, that was one of the main reasons I'd joined class! We learnt a few flowers, basic easy ones, but it was super fun!

The class began with us learning to make gumpaste, which is actually really similiar to fondant, except there's no egg white! Since we'd all already made fondant, this was actually quite easy for us! The instructors always teach us to to judge the correct consistency, rather than giving an estimate figure! As I learnt, it must be firm, but still moist enough to be rolled, and used. They also provided with a few tools for decoration, and petal cutters, that we needed to form the flowers.

They first they had us to, to get a little used to gumpaste, were simple plunger flowers. I loved how easy they were, and made too many :P Unfortunately, we don't get good quality plungers here, I'm going to have to wait for someone who's coming down here!



At the end of the class, after they had dried, we made swags/swirls? I forgot what it's called, but were made these using them -



As you can see, a LOT of the petals are broken. I thought I had clicked a picture of it, but I couldn't find it anywhere. So I clicked a picture today, a week later! I didn't bother with drying it up, since I knew I wouldn't have much use of it! luckily I hadn't thrown it out!

The first actual flower we learnt was the lily. The rains actually work in our favour for once, since it gives us much longer to work with the gumpaste, before it gets hard! However, after drying, the tiny bits tend to break off, since they get a little moist, as you can see in the picture below -



That's what the flower we make is supposed to look like, however we will learn airbrushing and coloring in a later class. They demonstrated how to roll the gumpaste out, to what thickness, etc. and then we made our flowers -



That was my first flower ever, so I'm pretty pleased with the results. Obviously the center had to covered, and it needs a lott of work. I actually practiced a lot over the week, and made pretty good lilies [no idea what kind these are. I have practically zero knowledge of flowers]. Unfortunately, I underestimated the amount of time needed to dry them in the pouring weather, and they soon lost shape :( It's the practice that counts doesn't it :P


Next up, the hibiscus. I lovee this flower, in real life. My gumpaste ones leave a lot to be desired :P. Here a picture of they are supposed to look, [they didn't have a colored one around that I could click ]-



Versus how my first one looked -



LOL! You can clearly see which was my first petal, and how by the last one, I started getting a hand of the ruffling. I didn't make actual flowers later in the week, for practice, I just did a LOT of ruffling, which they said we needed to learn for next week's class. Unfortunately, as I said before, no pictures :(

Read more on this course -Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11