Building Buttercream Skills, Class Two

In the second class, we learned how to torte, fill and frost a cake. I chose strawberry jam to go inside my yellow cake. The cake was a sugar bomb since the Wilton recipe for buttercream icing is so sweet!

Chocolate Roses

I took the skills I learned in class and applied them in the real world. Here are Perfectly Chocolate Cupcakes with Perfectly Chocolate Frosting all dressed up and ready to impress.

Building Buttercream Skills, Class One

I took the first course of the Wilton Method of Cake Decorating, which is called Building Buttercream Skills at my local Michaels store. The course consisted of four two-hour classes over four weeks. At the first class, we brought plain cupcakes, which we decorated with the skills we learned that day. I chose roses, swirls and stars, which were pretty basic, but also just pretty.

  

The cupcakes came from my freezer since I only had to bring in a few. The smaller cupcakes are champagne and the larger ones are chocolate. Unfortunately, these were frosted with the Wilton canned frosting, which tasted really awful. 

Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon (Buttercream?) Frosting

I made these cupcakes in honor of a friend's birthday. But, umm, this was back in June so I don't remember what recipe I used. I think it was from a cupcake cookbook I own.

They were delicious! The cake was kind of heavy, but packed a lemony punch. The frosting had a sweet-tart quality. I added a little yellow food-coloring to the frosting to make them more appealing.

If I remember what recipe I used, I'll update this post to include it. Sorry for the incomplete post!

Bunny Baking

I was ambitious this Easter and made a bunny cake, Easter egg cupcakes and assorted Easter-shaped cut-out cookies.

I left the bow tie coconut free. Need help assembling your own bunny cake? Click here for video instructions!

My tia gave me some Easter egg cupcake tins that she bought at a garage sale. This was the first time I used them, and they were cute so I might make them again next year. 

Usually cut-out cookies require frosting and decorating, which I've complained about before. I didn't think I could enlist frosters and decorators like I can at Christmas so I sprinkled them with assorted colored sugar before I popped them in the oven. The decorating was complete as soon as they came off of the baking sheet. And they were still pretty and tasty!

French Toast

Way back when I made my last baking post about white bread, I used that bread to make French toast. There's really no recipe to put here, but I'll describe it with pictures.

I sliced the bread about an inch thick, dipped it in a mixture of egg, milk and vanilla and grilled it in a little butter. 

I made a filling with cream cheese, cinnamon and powdered sugar. The end result was something between grilled cheese and stuffed French toast. 

I highly recommend using home-baked bread for French toast whenever possible. It is so good!

Blog-tober

In honor of my birthday month, I've decided to try to update this blog every day until I'm up-to-date on my posts. Most of the backlogged photos are baking-related (as seen on Instagram!) With any luck, I'll post a picture of my birthday cake by Halloween...