"Graduation Cake"

Yay! Finally completed my cake decoration class. It has been over 4 Saturdays which means very busy weekends the whole September. Busy not just because I had to go attend the classes, but also due to the preparations and practice required before the classes. i.e. baking cupcakes/ cakes so that we can use them in the class for decorations.

I was rather busy last week. Originally planned to bake the cake for yesterday's class on Thursday, but there was a brownies order. Although last minute, but due to special circumstances, I had to take that order. Quite lucky to have cake orders last week and this week because my pay cheque is going to take some time to clear. Sigh...

So first thing first, the cake. Baked a butter cake and this is one of the "cool tools" for icing the cake without have the cake crumbs "contaminating" the cake. Trust me, icing the cake can be very time consuming and extremely frustrating.

So, the "cake icer". Which is a giant nozzle so you can pipe on the icing instead of spreading the icing with the spatula. It minimizes the chances of us lifting up the cake crumbs when spreading with the spatula.

The cake icer is to be used together with a piping bag.

Just pipe the icing onto the cake. No sweat. (pictures a bit blur due to "multi-tasking") After that, even out the icing with a spatula.

Cake looks perfect enough? (if you don't look at it really up close). To get a really even surface, run a hot spatula over the icing.

Back to the cake deco class... We were suppose to make a cake with roses decoration as our graduation cake. The roses were to be made before the class and to be assembled onto the cake in the class. The cake needs to be covered before the class also. So due to cake orders, I only baked my cake on Friday night, last minute! The roses were badly made on Friday night, most of them lopsided.

Luckily those I made on Saturday morning were ok. You can straight away recognize these as roses can't you?

I cannot show you "the making" of the roses because I had to hold the "flower nail" (the far right needle looking thing) with my left hand while piping the roses with my right. And I need 2 different nozzles to shape the roses - that's why I have no free hand to hold the camera.

The roses were transferred onto the cake with the "flower lifter", ok, no pictures, next time. It's something that looks like a pair of scissors. After transferring the roses, leaves were added - piped with the leave nozzles.

Shen, if you are reading this. Remember we used to get "split ends" when using the other leave nozzle (not the duck beak looking one, the other one)? Apparently we are suppose to open up the nozzles so we can achieve a sharp end.

Here are the other cakes by my classmates.


We also did the "sweet peas" in class and I actually wanted to give the borders a finishing touch by having them on it. But I didn't have time. So I've added these after I've came home.

My idea of the cake is like this. MC said it looks like a wedding cake. Yeah, I actually agree with her. Roses decoration are rather old fashion, I mean classic.