Bake Me A Cake...Course 2

Course 2 of the Wilton method concentrated on making Flowers and Borders.

I learned how to make rosette and reverse shell borders made from buttercream icing. I also learned how to make rosebud and chrysanthemum flowers.

We also were taught how to do a basketweave icing technique. It looked much harder than it really was.

One important lesson in Course 2 dealt with making Royal Icing. This type of icing makes some really nice flowers, but is VERY finicky. You cannot have any grease or butter come into contact with utensils, bowls, decorating tools, etc, or the icing will fail. One little bit and you can throw away the batch of icing. But the results are well worth the extra steps it takes to make Royal icing. It dries hard whereas the buttercream icing stays soft. Decorations will keep for 6 months if stored properly.

I learned how to make Apple Blossoms, Violets, Daisies, Pansies, and Primroses out of Royal icing. We even made Wilton roses out of it.

One other technique we learned was decorating with color flow. You take a pattern and pipe an outline with color flow icing. Then using a thinned color flow icing, you fill inside the pattern with your colors. After it hardens, you have a nice decoration to put on your cake.

Course 2 only required us to bake and decorate a cake for the final class. You still had to come up with a design and make your decorations in advance using the techiques learned. I used the design in the course book.

It has Royal icing flowers, color flow blue birds, and the basketweave design on the side.

Course 2 Final Cake

I really enjoyed this course. I found once I got the hang of it, making flowers was lots of fun.

Next up, Course 3 - Fondant and Tiered Cakes