Cake Decorating- Easy as 123!

About a year ago, I took a cake decorating course at Michael's craft store and failed...miserably. I got crumbs from the cake in my frosting (the frosting that was full of transfats, that is), I couldn't make a good rose for the life of me, and I just...hated it! However, recently I've been watching Cake Boss on tlc.com and I've been inspired. A lot of progress has been made in the world of cake decorating. Now, more often than not, decorators use fondant for decorating instead of icing. It is very similar to clay and can be used to cover a cake and give it a clean finish or make figures and add decals. I'm the kind of person who, once I get something in my mind, HAS to do it!

One afternoon, the urge became overwhelming. I searched the internet and quickly found a great cake recipe (add an extra egg for a custard flavor), a buttercream frosting recipe, and even an easy fondant recipe! I decided to make all of my stuff from scratch because store-bought frosting and cake mix both have transfats and fondant is hard to find and very expensive. All of the recipes were very easy to follow and didn't require any really weird ingredients.

Once I baked my mini cakes (Wilton) , fondant, and frosting, I shaved off the uneven tops of the cakes and turned them upside down. That is a technique I learned in my decorating class that is very useful. Next, I frosted and decorated my cakes. The first cake I made was a "lion cake." I made it for a little friend of ours who loves lions and LOVES birthday cake! :)

I frosted the cake with chocolate frosting- I just added some cocoa powder to the vanilla frosting I had already made, plus some brown gel food coloring (Wilton). Gel food coloring is handy because you don't have to use as much and still get a bold, rich color. Next, I made the orange face out of fondant and dropped it on the cake. I couldn't believe it actually worked!! I also made the nose out of fondant, coloring it with gel food coloring. I made the mouth, eyes, and whiskers with black frosting I bought in a tube from Wilton. You can put any Wilton tip on the top of the frosting tube, so I would recommend getting black, even though it's expensive. It's kind of hard to make black frosting! Next, I piped chocolate frosting around the face and the bottom to make the lion hairy (and hide some rough edges!). Our little friend loved the cake and thought it was delicious!

Coming soon...

THE HAMBURGER CAKE!!!