Nothing much for the 1st lesson except on how to

• Prepare buttercream icing
• Prepare a piping bag using a parchment triangle
• Use the coupler on a piping bag, how to prepare the piping bag
• Torte the cake
• Fill a cake
• Iced the cake
• Icing consistency
• Holding the bag
• Pressure control on the piping bag

You will go home with “homework” now. You’ve to prepare a 8″ buttercake (not any smaller), iced it and bring back to school for Lesson 2. The nightmare of sifting icing sugar begins with the need to prepare different batches of buttercream in different consistency and color for the famous rainbow cake!

I have been wanting to take some proper lesson on cake decorating so just when I thought work is not busy I went on to sign on for one. Things took a turn when work went crazy with me knocking off work at 2am, 10pm, leaving me practically with no time to “enjoy” my lessons. No time to practise and I had to prepare my buttercream like 5 days ahead and leave it in the fridge, no time to bake the cake despite buying the 8″ cake tin and Wilton bake-even strips.

The reason for me writing this 5 part entry is I find little information on what to expect of the class. I hope this will give those who will like to attend a better idea. In addition, I will not name where I took the class from so please don’t leave comment here asking,  simply because I’m not given any commission … er .. no .. that’s not the reason but it’s subjective to each and individual if the course benefit one. And do not expect much pictures cos I was busy listening and watching!

You will be given one set of student kit that includes these :

• Course 1 Book
• 2 x 10-inch featherweight bags
• 1 x disposable piping bag
• 2 x Standard couplers
• #7 flower nail
• Tips Round #3 & #12, Star #16 & #21, Rose #104, Drop Flower 2D and Leaf 67
• Practice board set
• Small straight spatula
• Tip brush
• Decorator brush

But … that’s not enough! Despite I thought I’m quite well equipped with baking tools, I end up spending another bomb buying more tools. These are what you need (not exactly what I buy thou)

• Turntable! Yes … you need a turntable to frost the cake. IKEA’s lazy susan is the best deal so far thou I will very much prefer a higher one, easier to work on.
• Angled Spatula – easier to frost the cake
• More piping bags for many many buttercreams you need to prepare
• Wilton Cake Leveler – you want a nicely cut, even cake layer right?
• Wilton bake-even strips – you want a perfectly bake level cake so that your cake can be nicely frost.
• Many colors – Try to get the Wilton Icing Set which is the best deal since you won’t be adding tsp of colorings to your buttercream. Just a tiny bit will do.
• Wilton Flower Lifter – you use this to lift your rose up before putting on the cake
• Extra piping tips especially Star #16 as in the Rainbow cake, you have 4 colors to work with and you won’t want to get yourself busy changing and washing tips.
• Parchment/Greaseproof Paper – for cutting 4cm x 4cm square to pipe rose, to trace your rainbow.
• Wilton Small Derby Clown Topper – you will learn how to pipe a clown in the 3rd lesson.

Ingredients?

• Shortening – Loads of shortening
• Butter
• Icing Sugar – Bags of icing sugar which I approximately use 3kgs of icing sugar.
• Piping jelly
• Meringue Powder
• Flavourings – to flavour your buttercream
• 8″ buttercake x 3

This is another set of 24 cupcakes order I took back to back with the earlier one.  I didn’t have time to take a picture of the whole set cos I only do the photoshoot in the morning, minutes before I rush out to work.

Upon checking with the customer, she don’t have a particular theme in mind but request for ships to be included cos her kid like it. And I also ask her color theme for the house which is blue!

It have been a crazy week and more to come too! I had 2 cupcakes order this week and the 2nd one left me with less than 24 hours to prepare, these are the times which I wish the body won’t feel tired and keep going on! There are just too many to-dos and planning on the plate. I happily went on to register for a baking class sometime back, didn’t expecting a busy work month in the office. I hope I will find some time to write more about the class I attend as I find very little information available on the web. And there is a work trip end of the month so lots of preparation work too. Well, I guess it’s good to be busy

The customer is really nice, she leave the design to me just that it should not be too girly and heart shape around.

Happy Birthday to Nic!

It’s the cake decorating month! This month we have pretty embossing stick, patchwork cutters all the way from UK.

Leave your email here for a copy of the catalog!
Order Closing date : 11 Nov 09

This is a project that went the wrong way.  I prepared some chocolate cut-out cookies for another project, no sweat … it’s only a test-bake for me to have an idea how the whole thing will work and look like. Sadly that idea didn’t turn out the way I “imagine” it should be

Trying out the new set of nesting flutted cookie cutters and remember seeing Elisa Strauss have done something similar in her book Confetti Cakes, I am glad I did cut out which is how this post came about. Of course, I didn’t do a good job like her, I tried thou

The cookie is baked using Valrhona Cocoa powder and has a little bitter-sweet taste which will work well with the royal icing. Each layer of cookie is put together with royal icing and the pink icing is using Wilton Decorator Icing that I bought earlier. I think they come in really handy when you need a little of this and that icing.

Will be giving it to a colleague who is getting married soon!

We’ve a shipment coming in 2 weeks time and these plunger cutters are available so we would like to do a quick round and see if you’re keen to order these. Prices is at S$16.50 for either set of 4, 3 or 2 plunger cutters.

lease send your order to shopbake@yahoo.com.

Order closing this Sat, 24 Oct 09.

Just a note that I’ve put on on an additional page to put up new and preloved books for sale. Take a look and email me if you are keen.

I have been waiting patiently to use the Wilton Cookie Press I bought earlier. Waiting patiently because there is the mooncake season earlier then followed by the order last week and the right recipe. I don’t have very good experience using cookie press, it could be the press, it could be the dough. I would say I’m happy with the cookie press at the price tag less than S$20.  It serve it’s purpose, easy to use but the tricky part would be if you’re piping on baking sheet, the cookie will tend to stick the baking sheet up so hold down the baking sheet when you press.

Well, this round I took the recipe from trusted Martha Stewart’s Cookies : The Very Best Treats to Bake and to Share. It’s a lovely book to own and on my next-to-buy book list I like that the recipes are simple and the pictures are big and clean.

I halved the recipe and again I don’t have large eggs in the pantry so I adjust the proportion slightly. I also cut down the proportion of cinnamon. The cookies aren’t too sweet, too buttery with a light tinge of cinnamon, it’s lovely!

Vanilla-Bean Spritz Wreaths
190g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
80g caster sugar
150g unsalted butter
1 medium egg yolk

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Whisk together flour, salt, and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon.
2. Beat butter and 1 cup sugar with a mixer on medium speed until pale and fluffy.
3. Add egg yolks, beating well. Reduce speed to low.
4. Add flour mixture, and beat just until smooth.
5. Divide dough into 3 portions. Pack 1 portion into a cookie press fitted with wreath disk (cover remaining portions with an inverted bowl or refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 3 days; bring to room temperature before using), and press shapes about 2 inches apart onto baking sheets. Bake until edges are just golden, 9 to 12 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, combine remaining 2 teaspoons cinnamon with remaining 4 teaspoons sugar. Sprinkle over hot cookies. Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Repeat. Cookies can be stored in a single layer in airtight containers up to 4 days.

I’m very grateful for every order I received as it mean a level of trust that the customer have. I received a call from customer-turn-friend one afternoon and ask if I can do wedding cake! I want to be frank and let her know I’ve not done any whole cake covered with fondant before so I suggest cupcakes instead. I really hesitate about taking on the order but she is really nice and encourage me to give this a trial and ask me not to get stress over it. And all I had was 5 days before delivery so it was planning and planning, lots of browsing and discussion with K.

The customer ask if I could do eggless cakes which I have never done before too! She have some colleagues who doesn’t take eggs and I really hope everyone have a slice of cake so I went round searching for an eggless cake recipe. I was lucky to pick up a vegan baking book from the library and the recipe look good, did a test-bake and got positive reviews from colleagues, they couldn’t tell that it’s eggless! The cupcake is moist but has a slight baking soda aftertaste which I adjusted on the actual day baking. So I have shortlist the recipes, have an idea how the cake should look like (I wanted to do sketch but didn’t have time) and so it’s now to action time! The flowers and butterflies are cut out 2 days before to leave it dry and the butterflies are brushed with luster dust to give the sweet shiny look.

It’s a butter cake based with orange flavoured buttercream and covered with fondant. The cupcakes are chocolate cupcakes (eggless).

I kept the color theme simple to just peach/pink and white with silver dragees.

And this is the center piece of the cake!

Wishing the couple a happy and blessed marriage!