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...