Wilton Decorating

Cake Decorating

July 23, 2009 by Amy 6 Comments

wfmwbannerKRISTEN

This is a really late post, but this WFMW is not as broad as usual. In cake decorating, you learn how to work with many different mediums. Buttercream, Meringue, Royal Icing, Fondant, Gumpaste, Modeling Chocolate–just to name a few.

Honestly, there are advantages and disadvantages to each one, but my favorite (so far) is fondant. The only problem? Fondant isn’t cheap…at all! At least the pre-made stuff isn’t.

So, when I found a Marshmallow Fondant recipe online, I was skeptical. I was afraid of the sticky gooey disaster, but let me tell you, that stuff comes together!!

Another advantage, marshmallows and powdered sugar are DIRT CHEAP as opposed to a box of fondant! Oh, one more thing….you can flavor it with extracts. No need for hard-to-find candy oils, like you do with regular pre-made fondant.

Here’s the latest cake that I made with Marshmallow Fondant for my Wilton course, and if you’re curious, check out the recipe here!

Pardon the kleenex and torn ribbon there. It’s been a while since I worked with fondant!

Marshmallow fondant works for me in cake decorating. To see what works for other bloggers, check out We are that Family.

I love a good (Wilton) sale

July 3, 2009 by Amy 2 Comments

I’ve never seen Hobby Lobby have a no limit sale on their Wilton products before, so when I saw this coupon, I knew I had to stock up!

Since I’m about to take Course 3, I decided to stock up on some essentials before the class starts next Friday.

It’s been a while…ahh. Can you believe I got all this for $25?? Yeah…feeling awesome right now! I’m very excited about Course 3!

This sale is going on until July 4th, fellow Wilton-ers, so if you need to stock up, now is definitely the time!

Back to Wilton I go!

June 30, 2009 by Amy 2 Comments

I’ve taken Wilton classes before. In fact, I took Course 1, Course 2, and Fondant/Gumpaste. I skipped Course 3 because I was afraid of tiered cakes. It’s a fear I have and plus, how the HECK do I pawn off so much cake?

I decided to just take the class. I’m getting very rusty in my skills and could use a fun refresher to get me ready for some upcoming cake fun.

I’m very excited about this course!

Stay tuned next month for some fun new cakes! And a neat (hopefully) cake decorating surprise too!

Save the Tatas!

June 14, 2009 by Amy 4 Comments

I haven’t touched royal icing in months. There was a reason though. My hand mixer had settings of fast and faster. It really grated my nerves when I had to make this icing, because it would result in large powdered sugar clouds that took over my kitchen, resulting in the need to REALLY clean our kitchen. (I’m talking on my hands and knees because the floor was so sticky!)

So, now I have my precious KA mixer from my grandmother as a wedding gift. I was mentioning to my best friend that I needed a reason to bake, because I really wanted to break my mixer in. She said I could make her sugar cookies (she was joking). I wasn’t — so I now have the task of making her 2 dozen breast cancer awareness cookies.

Let’s just say icing making in the KA mixer is a DREAM. In fact, it’s making me want to enroll in Wilton Course 3, to finish off the series. (I took 1, 2 and 4 already…there are cake examples in this blog if you’re interested!)

I used my no-fail recipe from the ever-so-wonderful Cookie Craft book. I don’t like to share recipes out of books, because of potential copyright infringement. I don’t want to get in any kind of trouble here!

However, just to let you know, I highly recommend this to anyone needing inspiration and ideas for making pretty rolled cookies. I used the royal icing recipe from the Wilton website.

Pardon my icing skills, by the way, I’m VERY rusty!

Wish me luck on shipping these bad boys to Dallas. I’m going to be using some tips that I starred from The Hyper Homemaker’s blog (which is no longer up, sadly, but will always be handy in my Google reader!).

Elephant Cookies!

November 25, 2008 by Amy 4 Comments

My fiance’s nephew just turned 3 years old, and for his birthday, I volunteered to make cookie favors. His favorite animal (of the moment) is an elephant, so I went on the search for an elephant cookie cutter. I found a great set called “Noah’s Ark” at Macy’s that had an elephant. Then, I used the standard Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix (remember I’m still on the search for that PERFECT cookie recipe, so in the meantime, I use my trusty mix) and went to town!

This is the first time I worked with flood icing, so I think I did pretty well considering! I’m now ready to make fun Christmas cookies using my experience with the icing!

If Wilton gave you $30….

October 14, 2008 by Amy 2 Comments

…what goodies would you get?

I’ve taken 3 Wilton classes so far, and somewhere in there I got randomly selected to take a survey for a gift certificate for Wilton goodies! Originally, it was $20, which was generous! However, when I got my form in, they gave me $30 to cover shipping/taxes!! SCORE!!

So, I wanted some fun goodies and useful things as well. If I could, I’d get all sprinkles because those are just fun! However, I wanted some useful items I could use in my decorating too. I ended up getting a hybrid of both…check out the stash!

* Bake Even Strips
* Flower Lifter
* Candy Dipping Set
* White Sparkling Sugars
* White Nonpareils

I’m so excited about using the Bake Even Strips, especially, because I’m making my future nephew in law (I guess you can say)…a TIERED birthday cake full of elephants and jungle fun. So, I think these little strips will come in handy, and even though I haven’t taken tiered cakes yet, I have a feeling I can handle stacking two cakes. I have the instructions after all…how hard can it be?

Fondant & Gumpaste Flowers

August 19, 2008 by Amy 4 Comments

I recently took Wilton’s Fondant & Gumpaste class, and we were shown how to make flowers with gumpaste. I love gumpaste…it can be molded so thin and it’s flexible. It also dries super fast! Here are some pictures of my carnations and fantasy flowers…enjoy!!

Carnation with pearl dust in pink brushed on.

This is the fantasy flower with the same pearl dust brushed on.

Last Class of Gumpaste and Fondant…

July 31, 2008 by Amy 15 Comments

I will show the flowers I made for the Wilton class in a later post…I left my microSD card at FI’s…so be ready this weekend!!

For now, I borrowed my gracious sister’s camera to take a quick pick of my final class’s cake. For this, I used marshmallow fondant from Wilton’s forums (thanks to user bunnywoman). The great thing about this recipe, is you can mix the food coloring in right after the marshmallows are melted, which is way easier than kneading it in!!

I do have to thank Melissa at Made by Mel for inspiring me that this fondant won’t be quite so hard to make. Check out her cakes…she is amazing at cake decorating!!

I also added Amaretto candy oil to the fondant to give it more flavor…the fondant tasted like italian cookies to me! Without the oil, it reminded me of circus peanuts! Regardless, MUCH better than the boxed stuff and WAY cheaper ($20/box vs. same amount for $6)!!

Here is the recipe for marshmallow fondant. Don’t be intimidated by the stuff…it’s easy…but remember line EVERYTHING in crisco (don’t be scared of crisco..it’s your BFF with fondant) to avoid the stickies!!

Marshmallow fondant (to cover a cake, you need about two batches)
1 cup mini marshmallows (appx. 10-11 large marshmallows…I learned this b/c the grocery store didn’t have mini’s…I know…WTH???)
1 tbsp water (if you want to use candy oil, subtract 1/8 tsp of water and add 1/8 tsp of candy oil)
1 1/2- 1 3/4 cup powdered sugar

Place marshmallows in a standard 1 cup measuring cup and push down and pack them in. Place in a microwave safe bowl and add the water. Put in the microwave for about 20 seconds. Just long enough for them to soften and puff up. Take out and stir with a spoon until it is combined well. At this point it looks kind of soupy. Then add the sugar and mix and fold until all is incorporated and it is no longer sticky. I take it out of the bowl when it gets to the point where most of the sugar is incorporated and I knead it in my hands. This takes roughly about 5-7 minutes. Take a fondant roller or a regular rolling pin and roll out just as you would Wilton’s fondant. You can get this fondant almost paper thin and it also repairs well. It’s cheap, easy to work with, and tastes great too.

Without further adieu, here are some pictures of the cake. My sister was the photog and she did a great job! 🙂

My first fondant cake!

July 21, 2008 by Amy 7 Comments

I decided to take fondant and gumpaste and skip Course 3. I do not like the idea of making a tiered cake for the reason of WAY too much cake, but I plan on teaching myself the fundamentals of course 3 through the books, which are sold at Hobby Lobby. Here is my first cake, which I made for the second class. It’s LSU colors hehehe 🙂 I’m definitely ready for football season. I’m gonna challenge myself to make a gumpaste tiger come football season. Geaux Tigers!

Wilton Course 2…

April 25, 2008 by Amy 6 Comments

This was a great course. It took me a while to catch up and learn these flowers but my favorite is highlighted in my final cake.

The filling is fresh blackberries (adapted from Katie’s recipe), the cake is Pillsbury mix (get over it LOL) and the frosting is white chocolate buttercream (oh yeh, yum!)

The coworkers are in for a treat Friday 😉

Mixing filling…looks like something out of Dr. Seuss