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Friday, May 16, 2014

Baking the Road Less Traveled

Hello fellow bakers and sweet treat lovers! I have recently decided to try to master the delicious art of sugary confections. Yes, I want to be a professional cake decorator.

All my life I have been obsessed with desserts, especially anything with frosting! I also have a great appreciation for art and design. So it hardly seems surprising that many a cake have left me feeling intrigued and awe-inspired. To learn how to create those amazing masterpieces has been a desire of mine for quite some time now. I won't get into too much of my background right now, but if you want to know a little more about me and why this is something I want to do, just click on my "About Me" link.

So as of now, I have already decorated one cake using professional tools. In fact, it was that cake that really pushed me to realize that this was something I truly enjoy, despite the amount of work it takes. It was for my niece's first birthday. I decided that since I had made something special for my nephew for his last birthday, I wanted to do the same for my niece, who have both brought so much joy to my life. Side note: being an aunt is one of the most wonderful blessings I have ever gotten. It is so much fun to see life through a child's eyes.

Violet's princess cake


Wyatt's Elmo cupcakes

The inspiration for both of those creations came from a lot of pictures I found on Pinterest (surprise surprise, right?). So for this project I opted to start by doing some more searching on Pinterest, and some other sites, to see what designs really caught my eye. In doing so I also decided that I will have to first play around with some classic cake decorations, using basic tools.

Right now I have 6 different decorating tips, and plan to accumulate more as I continue to learn more designs. I have already learned how to make a rose, as you can see in the picture above of the cake I made for my niece. That one was actually a lot of fun to learn, because it's been a very common flower on so many cakes I've seen and I always thought that it looks so pretty and even life-like.

The biggest help I found with that design was actually by searching for YouTube videos. There are a lot of good tips out there from experienced decorators who have added in some steps/hints of their own to help you be more successful. Here's a link to one of the videos I found most beneficial: How to Make A Buttercream Rose.

My next step is going to be making a plan for what I need/want to learn. For now I am still waiting on some more decorating tips that I purchased to arrive in the mail. So for my next lesson I have decided to start by playing around with some of the tips I have, and practicing the typical designs that they are used for. Then, if I have time, to make some marshmallow fondant. Fondant is something I have yet to make but have wanted to for a long time because it really gives you a lot more options for creating whatever design you have in mind. I also hope to get good enough at making different shapes out of it, as I anticipate using it to make little minions for the Despicable Me cake I'm planning to make my nephew this year. :)

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