{ Cupcakes }

Cupcakes are CUTE. That's why we make them, right?

I made some cupcakes this week for a family event and I was quite pleased with how they turned out, so I thought why don't you blog about it???


The trick to perfect cupcakes is getting them proportioned right. Too much batter and they have weird muffin-tops that break and are hard to frost. Too little and they don't "fill out" the cup. No one wants an incomplete cupcake.

Getting the paper cup filled 2/3 is just about right:And then you have dozens of perfect cupcakes. {The ones at the end aren't as filled out... I ran out of batter...}

Icing is important as well. I prefer making mine from scratch. I love SeriousCakes recipe!
Beat the heck out of it. That's how you get a smooth buttercream. I mean really, turn it on high and BEAT THE HECK OUT OF THAT ICING!
It will get bruised and turn blue...

Just kidding. I needed blue cupcakes {because IT'S A BOY!}

Like little soldiers, my cupcakes were all uniformed and ready to go!
Martha Stewart {check Michael's} stickers and toothpicks made perfect & simple decor. They say, "Welcome, Little One". Cute, huh?
Husband thinks he is soooo funny...
I piped {imperfect} swirls on them with tip #12. Sigh... don't you just love cute cupcakes?

{ Course 1 - Final Cake }

The last class in Course 1 had us learning icing roses. Note my Course 1 completion certificate in the background:


My little cakes, ready to be baked...


Here's my little beauty after smoothing. This was my best icing job to date.
We were mostly focused on doing the icing roses this class, we practiced those for the first hour. I'm so glad we have such a good teacher, I know not all Wilton students are so lucky. Some teachers tend to just hold "come play with icing" classes. Our teacher gets really hands on and critiques our techniques until she knows we're doing it perfectly. I really appreciate that!

I am especially proud of my nearly-flawless shell border on the bottom:


My rose, ready for it's close up.
And, ahem, allow me to point out how smooth the cake surface is... ;-)

Course 2 starts the first week of April! We'll learn the basket weave, royal icing, and more flowers...

{ 2nd Course 1 Cake }

For the second course 1 cake, Husband suggested I use a strawberry cake mix. At first I cringed but I have since realized this was an excellent idea - I hate strawberry cake so I won't eat it!

Here it is after icing it with Mother Tip (#789) but before smoothing.

And after smoothing:


And finally, after class. We were taught lots of techniques this week! We learned how to section off a cake, pipe figures (like teddy bears, babys, and {shudders} clowns), and also to pipe shapes (like hearts). I put my website on there to help deter CakeWrecks and other people from making fun of my mis-matched cake. It was fun to make!Piped baby booties. SO CUTE!

An up-close of my hearts. I really think I will use this technique quite often...

And we learned how to pipe figures - like these smiley clowns.

Next we're doing a cake with roses. I'm pretty excited about that...

{ First Course Cake }

This is the first cake we all made in our Wilton Course 1 class. We needed to bring a 2-layer 8 inch round with light blue frosting. Again, I got it smooth with the paper towel technique.We transferred the outline of a rainbow, and used each band on the rainbow to practice a different technique for filling.

Zig zag piping, stars, dots, and smoothing. The clouds were also piped zig zags that were increased size in the middle.
We got to write whatever words we wanted, as long as it was at least 3 letters.
So there you have it! My very first class cake.

{ Eisley's Baptism Cake }

This cake was my first "beginner" cake, but it was before I started taking classes. The skills I used to make this cake were mostly learned from videos by SeriousCakes's YouTube channel.

Okay, so I did a three layer (I know -eek! - three layers for a beginner?) chocolate cake. Since I started taking classes I've learned the best technique for getting cakes out of the pan, but I didn't know that then...

So once layer got a pretty bad tear coming out. But I patched it up the best I could and eventually everything worked out.

The paper towel technique helped me get this baby as smooth as Eisley's bottom!

The piping was self taught. I have the horrible habit of making "snails" instead of shells on my shell borders. My teacher is always catching me reverting back to my old ways...

This isn't a great picture, but you get the idea. There are crumbs because I didn't have enough icing or time to do a crumb coat and I also didn't have the MotherTip (that's what I like to call tip #789).
Tall cake! Very, very beginner. But still good.