Give Thanks where Thanks are Needed

These past few weeks have been amazing, stressful, inspiring and hectic! Keeping up with this blog became secondary for a bit, but I am back at it! I started school at CCD and I am currently taking a couple pre-req classes as I apply to the Vet Tech program....something I have dreamed about doing since I was old enough to know that a puppy kiss was all I needed in life --- ok, not all, but sure fills my heart! Recently I have been occupied with getting back in the swing of school life, more work on my website, getting approval to work out of a commercial kitchen, am in the process of getting everything organized with the state to be 'official' with Sugar Coated, fulfilling orders, hosting family, dog sitting, and am doing some shameless marketing.  And its working! I have had so many fun orders come in! Keep them coming!

I have realized ever more (but never doubted) that I really have an amazing family and wonderful friends full of support, encouragement, and well wishes! So....THANK YOU!

Wilton's Gum Paste and Fondant

This was by far my favorite class! During this class we learned how to color, mold, press and design with fondant and gumpaste.  I must add that in addition to the instruction we get from our spectacular teacher Helen, we get all sorts of supplies and fun gadgets to play with! There are so many tools of the trade, and by this class I had acquired enough supplies that I needed and purchased a 5-shelf system just to hold everything! We started by making a fondant bow, and the centers for our flowers as they had to dry over several days.  We learned how to make calla lilies, roses and rosebuds, carnations, leaves and calyxes (parts of the flower stem), daisies, mums and different boarders with fondant such as rope, eyelet, pearl and ruffle boarders. Helen specializes in realistic gumpaste flowers, and teaches an advanced course just for that (which I can hardly wait to take in the fall!) so along with how our lesson plan taught us to make flowers, Helen showed us 'her way'.  Big difference if you ask me! I learned in this class that there is a big difference between artistic and perfectionist decorators, and decorators who do a good job.  I hope to be known as an extremely artistic perfectionist designer!

For our Final project, we as a class chose a design to follow (with our own interpretation of course!) and covered our first cake in fondant and gumpaste flowers. It was a bittersweet project, knowing it was our final Final, and we had each come into our own skills from where we started.  I made a 2 layer white cake from scratch covered in buttercream, again with my grandmothers homemade raspberry jam as the filling.  We decided on calla lilies as our flower topper, which were made ahead of time.  I mastered the fondant, having no cracks or elephant skin.  (But not without a little help from Helen).  Did you know its actually more easy to cover a square cake with fondant than it is a round?  Its amazing how fondant works.  Beautiful as it is, I still dont personally prefer the taste of it.  But thats why we put buttercream underneath, right? 

...my fondant bow. It got a little sun faded from where it sat in the classroom...

...my carnation, made Helen's way...she loved it so much she almost wanted to keep it!...

 ...my cake!...

...calla lilies, made out of gumpaste.  The stamens are rolled in yellow sanding sugar for a more realistic look.  We had to put on green calyxes and leaves as part of our design ...

 

 ...my look-like-lace detail cut from fondant.  I cut out each hole with a #2 tip, and INDIVIDUALLY put the fondant dots on, rather than piping dots because its all about the DETAILS!...

 ...the incredible cakes made by my fellow classmates, each one so beautiful and individual...

Wilton's Flower and Cake Design Course

After 4 weeks of the basic course, we stared right up again with 4 weeks of the second course...flowers and cake design.  As much as I learned from this class, I found this lesson plan was less challenging.  But don't get me wrong, that is not a complaint.  We learned the fundamentals (and finickiness!) of Royal Icing, basketweave, some new boarders, an introduction to gumpaste (my favorite!), molds and of course practiced our roses in buttercream and royal icing.  Among the flowers we learned how to create were pressed button flowers (from a mold), pansies, apple blossoms, primroses, rosebuds, daffodils, violets and a lily.  It was during these 4 weeks that our classmates really got to know each other, and it became fun to talk to each other about our experiences with baking and decorating.  For our final, we had to prepare our royal icing flowers ahead of time so they could properly dry, and had the option to design our cake as we wished with flowers and basketweave.  Helen especially was fond of my basketweave ability!  I made a 2 layer white cake from scratch with my grandmother's homemade raspberry jam as a filling.  I loved the way my cake turned out, and I was able to sell it the next morning to Jason's Deli for a birthday celebration for one of its employees! It got rave reviews I might add...

 ...my variety of royal icing flowers I prepared ahead of time.  I made a lot because I hadn't decided how I was going to design my cake...

 

...I made orange roses, yellow daffodils, pink primroses, blue apple blossoms, purple violets and white lilies with artificial stamens and hand painted green accents...

...Final project! Buttercream icing with edible royal icing flowers.  This was really my first word piping that I had done (and believe me, practice makes perfect!), and I absolutely love the way I arranged the flowers.  I wish I had a picture of my incredible basketweave! I did a shell boarder on top and bottom...

Wilton's Decorating Basics Course

Cake Crafts is this little old cake supplies shop in south Denver/Englewood with a classroom upstairs where a group of less than 20 were taught the magic of cake decorating.  As I am now, I am slightly amused at the lack of skills I went into my first class with, as I thought I could be one of those self-taught types, that practice was all I would need.  But really I knew better, I knew that to be good, I needed the real know-how!  Basics. It all starts with the basics. The fundamentals. The first step.  What a humbling experience my first course was.  With our incredible teacher Helen, our class learned how to bake a cake properly, how to fill our pastry bag so it didn't 'smooge' all over, how to crumb coat and properly frost a cake, how to tell and know the consistency of our frosting for what we were using it for, and then we learned how to pipe. Pipe with all kinds of tips. Stars, and waves and shells and dots and eventually basic flowers and leaves. We decorated cookies, and cupcakes and eventually a couple cakes. Phew, that was a lot to take in!  Helen felt that we should learn early how to pipe a rose (which is taught in the second course). If you haven't piped more than 100 roses, Helen made sure you piped at least 5 more for her, as practice made perfect! The joy of learning from Helen was that once we became her students, we became privy to her 'secret' recipes.  Secret enough that some students take courses with her just to obtain those recipes!  As a class, we all took notes when she let out her secret tips and tricks of the trade!  For our final, we baked and frosted our second cake.  We had a basic design to follow of making a spray of roses, and I was happy with my cake in the end.  I wish I had a picture of one of my cakes we had to make with a puffy frosting cupcake design...that one was funny looking to me. But it sure tasted wonderful!

...my cupcakes: grass tip with little bugs, a yellow mum flower, a purple 'pom-pom' (which we all agreed was nothing close to a pom-pom), a white drop flower, and one of my first buttercream roses...

...my first fondant looking buttercream frosted cakes, with drop flowers and piped leaves, with a yellow shell boarder...

...a better look at my shell boarder...

 ...the cake we decorated for our Final.  Buttercream roses and a pearl boarder...

...we had to pipe some form of wording, and I had run out of time, thus the simple 'Hi'...

Millions of Peaches....

One of the first cupcake recipes that I made my own was a peach cobbler recipe.  Kay, my fantastic mother-in-law, had a bunch of frozen peach slices in quart bags she prepared herself, and she gave me some...I had to figure out what to do with them!  I grew up eating peach cobbler for breakfast, served steaming hot in a bowl with cold milk poured on top of it....yum!  So I thought to myself that a peach cobbler cupcake seemed rare enough, I bet it would be fantastic!  I searched the Internet, and came across several recipes that looked worth a try. After some personal tweeks to the recipe, I had it down pat. Lets just say they were and are a huge hit! They just may be one of my personal favorites....full of spice and crumble topping, and bits of peaches in every bite.  Last fall, I made a several dozen and took them to Utah to sell at a Cancer Sucks Fundraiser my extended family did for my dear cousin Terre...several people bought a dozen each from me!  And those that tried them right then and there told me I was on to something....so my peach cobbler cupcakes were born! I have since tried several frosting companions, from peach infused whipped cream cheese to a simple confectioners sugar syrup to my famous fluffy vanilla frosting.  I have found the frosting choice is preference to how you grew up eating peach cobbler....but either way, there is nothing better! Ok, well, for some of you, I guess chocolate is always better....ha!

...with peach infused cream cheese frosting and a sprinkle of fresh nutmeg

...with confectioners sugar syrup

In remembrance of Terre Bjerregaard Holcomb

We love you, and miss you every day!

January 1969 - February 2011

The 2am Cake

My baby sister Valarie graduated from college last December, and I went to visit my family in Missouri to celebrate and attend her graduation.  I had been thinking to myself it would be nice if I could make her a celebratory cake...my Mom must have read my mind because she asked if I could make something nice for Val.  Of course I was more than excited to do so! At this time, I had never decorated such a cake, and I wanted it to be something no one in my family had seen me do before.  Mom and I got on the internet, picked out several designs, and I made a plan of colors and sizes and gathered my how-to.  It was at this point I realized how intensive cake decorating really is - I never thought about the use of dowels to make certain stacked cakes more sturdy, or realized the importance of  a cake board, or how many individual materials was needed for what I thought was a 'simple design'!  Being in Camdenton, MO and having little time to prepare, my only option for supplies was the local Wal Mart, which thankfully was stocked with what I needed...I guess I am so spoiled here in Denver with my Michaels, Hobby Lobby and Cake Crafts at my fingertips!  My Dad sure helped me out, making my cake board, cake level guides, and cutting my dowels and graduation cap top out of his shop.  I could tell he was just as excited as I was!  The night before we left for Cape Girardeau for Val's graduation, I got to work baking 3 different boxed cakes (chocolate, vanilla and sprinkles) in the sizes needed, and made and colored my buttercream frosting.  That alone was work, phew!  I assembled, shaped, sculpted, frosted, piped, molded and created my first occasion cake, which took me a total of 6 hours or so.  I will never forget how my parents reacted with excitement the next morning, seeing my masterpiece for the first time!  We crafted a make-shift cake cover, and set out for the 3 hour ride to Cape. 

I decided we would present the cake to Val at dinner that night at the Italian restaurant she picked out.  My family, which included my wonderful parents, my sister Korrin, my brother Shane, my Coon grandparents, and Hardman grandparents, were all present.  Dad and I left the table after dinner, went out to the truck to get my cake, and came inside to surprise Val.  And surprised she was! (...as well as the entire restaurant, might I add!) This was the point when I realized I knew I wanted to create beautiful cakes more often, because seeing her face light up and the feeling I got when I presented Val with my cake I made JUST FOR HER was AMAZING!  I couldn't wait to dig in and give everyone a piece - people always ask me if I feel bad/sad for cutting up my hard work, and NO! I cant wait for people to enjoy it with all their senses, not just seeing its beauty! 

Needless to say, the cake tasted great, but I have come A LONG WAY since then!  Everyone has to start somewhere!!!  I am sure proud of my first cake, and I am glad my family was able to share it with me on Val's special day! 

Valarie studied Spanish and Anthropology, and planned on returning to Madrid, Spain, to teach after graduating.  The top layer was sprinkle cake shaped into a graduation cap - Red was her school colors.  The cap board was covered in fondant, and I rolled out the tassle in fondant.   The second layer was vanilla cake with homemade raspberry jam filling, made into a Spanish book.  I hand piped the individual pages out of buttercream.  The largest layer was chocolate cake and my first attempt at chocolate buttercream.  It's shaped as a World Atlas, as Val is quite the traveler these days!  The diploma is rolled fondant with a fondant ribbon.  Before this cake, I had never really piped with different tips, or used so many colors, or even played with fondant!  

Mommy Fix!

As I mentioned in my last post, Lane surprised me with decorating classes for Christmas.  I could hardly wait to get registered for the class...after a few phone calls, I was informed the next available start date wasn't until the end of MARCH!  I can be very inpatient when excited about something, but I signed up for then and got the (numerous!) supplies needed.  The classes were held at Cake Crafts on South Broadway, about a 45 minutes drive from my house in traffic.  Every Monday.  For 12 weeks.  The curriculum is from Wilton, the company that sells cake decorating product in most of your everyday art and craft stores like Michaels and Hobby Lobby.  But the prize winning mention of why I CHERISHED my Christmas gift - the classes were taught by Helen Sembra, world renowned cake decorator, judge, author, innovator and instructor.  

Copied from the Cake Crafts website: Helen Sembra is well known and respected for her vast decorating expertise in the cake decorating industry. She has been teaching cake decorating for 60 years and has taught classes in countries around the world including England, Germany and Japan. She is a national and international judge for Cake Decorating and Culinary Arts shows and was inducted into the International Cake Explorations Societé Hall of Fame.  

Let me tell you what, this spunky 80-something year old is seriously the most humorous, talented and accredited little lady I have ever had chance to meet! Her skill, steady hand and knowledge is far above any of the Food Network stars and judges, and other known masters in the cake field! She should be, she basically created the Wilton class plan by TEACHING the student(s) who eventually wrote the Wilton class books! (Side note: In class, Helen sometimes scolded that particular student for bad instruction in the Wilton books, haha! )  Did I mention she is around 300 students shy of having taught 10,000????? Helen had a saying in class she used when someone made a mistake and needed her help - 'Mommy fix!'  We just loved that about her, she really wanted everyone to succeed! I am so thankful to have had the pleasure to study under Helen, and I so look forward to continuing classes with her! 

I took all 3 of the Wilton classes, which were 'Decorating Basics', 'Flowers and Cake Design', and 'Gum Paste and Fondant'.  Additionally, Helen teaches several specialized courses of her own, which I plan to take in the fall  (Helen gives herself the much needed summer off).  I became good friends with all of the gals over the 12 weeks, as majority of us took back to back classes.  It was so much fun having their own baking and decorating experiences to talk about, to get their suggestions about certain recipes and techniques, and of course hear about the inevitable blunders of the cake decorating world :) I really learned so much in such a short period of time, and the quality of it all gave me the confidence I needed to venture out on my own.  Good thing I took lots of notes!

Helen, thank you for teaching me!