Class: Flowers and Cake Design

Last October, Piggy KL and I took our first cake decorating course together at the NY Cake Academy.  There we learned the basics of cake decorating including how to use decorating bags, how to ice a cake with a smooth finish, and how to make basic buttercream flowers.  We had so much fun that we signed up for the second course: Flowers and Cake Design!

My final cake from the Flowers and Cake Design course!

Similar to the first cake decorating course, Flowers and Cake Design is taught over three classes and structured by Wilton.  And so, for the last three Saturdays, Piggy KL and I hauled all our supplies to the NY Cake Academy to further hone our cake decorating abilities.  In this second course, we learned:

Chinese New Year and Dragon Cupcakes!

It's the year of the Dragon!

I'm hoping that this new year will bring good tidings to you all [and a change of luck to those of us who need it!].  It doesn't hurt to follow the usual Chinese traditions to start the new year off on the right foot.  Hey, I need all the help I can get!

Here's my checklist:

• Get together with family [check]
• Have a new year's feast [check]
• Clean the house apartment [check]
• Clean myself! [check]
• Wear red [eh... I'm hoping pink counts! Red just didn't match today's suit]
• Wish friends and family a happy new year! [check and check]

As my family gathered over the weekend to celebrate the new year, we ate lots of traditional food like fish (to wish for a plentiful new year), noodles (longevity), meat balls with strings of seaweed (prosperity), and oysters (good tidings).

Chinese New Year feast cooked by my Dad!

My contribution to the feast was dessert - hoping to put my skills from cake decorating class to good use! I wanted to do cupcakes this time and wound up honoring the new year of the dragon.  I got the idea from Hoosier Homemade's blog and was so impressed/inspired by her dragon cupcakes!  Here is how I put my own spin on it...

Class: Cake Decorating Basics (Class #3)

Ta da! The Piggys have graduated from Cake Decorating Basics!!  We even have a snazzy certificate to prove it! Of course, they are hanging proudly on the fridge...

After three classes, the Piggys now know how to pipe a couple of different patterns, ice a cake, decorate it, and pipe an assortment of flowers, yay!  For our last class, we brought in cupcakes to decorate (thank goodness these came out soo much better than our cakes last week - no unfortunate craters or [pan]cakes this time)!

We prepared a couple of different colors of icing and were ready to go.  First things first, we learned how to pipe icing onto our cupcakes in a swirled motion.

Swirling 'round and 'round, just like so...

Class: Cake Decorating Basics (class #2)

Isn’t this such an awesome cake?  Would you believe it if I told you it was made entirely from scratch by Piggy KL?!  Yes its possible because the Piggys are back in [cake] school and getting our learn on again! 

On an early Saturday morning, two sleepy Piggys dragged themselves to their second class of cake school at the NY Cake Academy (if you haven't had a chance to flip through our recap of class #1, you can check it out here).  There may have been some grumps and moans (*ahem Piggy KL*) but once we got settled into our seats the excitement for the day’s lesson turned us into eager students!

Step 1: Prep for class

Class #2 focused on how to ice and decorate a cake.  We had to come to class armed with our Student Kits, icing, and a pre-baked cake ready to go.  Sadly, this was apparently the most challenging part as my cake came out flat as a pancake and Piggy KL’s had a crater in the middle oyy. 

 

Piggy KL's ready-to-go cake - she flipped it over so that the crater was hidden on the bottom.  Smart girl!

Class: Cake Decorating Basics

The Piggys are in school again! Just kidding.  But we are enrolled in Cake Decorating Basics at the NY Cake Academy.  Granted it's not a baking class so no guarantee our baking skills will be stellar after we 'graduate', but our baked goods will sure look snazzy!

The three lessons in the course are structured by Wilton, but offered by the NY Cake store in NYC.  The class is held in the basement of the store where there are tables and stools set up to accommodate about 10-12 students.

The class costs $100 for three 2 1/2 hour lessons and students are responsible for purchasing some Wilton supplies for the class, including the Decorating Basics Student Kit (comes with fun toys like icing bags, basic decorating tips, couplers, a spatula and a practice board with patterns), icing, icing colors, extra spatulas and other baking tools we still have yet to learn how to use! So far the basic supplies have cost about $60, money happily spent by us Piggys to further our cake decorating careers!

Displaying some of our decorating tools. See all the different tips too? Can't wait to learn how to use them!