The Airbrushing Class

I don't think I ever uploaded my blog post about the airbrushing class I took a couple months ago. It. Was. Awesome! :D The class was in Ocala, though, so that was kind of a bummer. It was a two hour drive from and we got super lost.

But once we finally made it to the class, it was so worth it. I learned about the different brands of airbrushes (and decided I loved my Duff version. Sure it's not the best out there, but it definitely works for my little projects. When I open up my own place, then I can look into getting one of those fancy brands).

We played with different colors, and learned how to do different techniques and textures, like covering an entire cake in one color, or using a stencil to do a pattern.

And I got to make a really big mess and my mom wasn't around to yell at me. ;-)

Since taking the class, I haven't really done any big airbrushing projects, aside from putting shimmer on some little details of cakes (I'll have to put pictures of those up later). But I definitely feel more confident using my airbrush than I did before the class!

The class was taught by the lovely ladies at Simi Cakes at Icing on the Cake in Ocala, FL. :)

Nutella Cake Balls Recipe

A few weeks ago, I finally got around to trying nutella flavored cake balls. They were pretty amazing, and I'm also pretty sure that's my new favorite flavor (sorry, red velvet!)

And all of you lucky readers can have my recipe...

All you need is a chocolate cake (already baked and cooled and crumbled up into little pieces, of course), a jar of nutella, and chocolate coating/almond bark/tempered chocolate (your choice; I was lazy so I went with the almond bark but I'm pretty sure tempered dark chocolate would've been amazingggg).

You make these cake balls as you would any other, except you use nutella instead of frosting, and the secret is to microwave the nutella for a bit first so that it gets a little runnier. That way it's easier to mix in with the cake crumbs.

And once you've smushed your ingredients together, rolled them up into little balls, and dipped them in chocolate, you're good to go! Now all you've got to do is hide them from everyone, or else there won't be any left by the time you get home from school the next day :P

The Dummy Cake

For my entrepreneurship class, I'm doing a presentation of my business plan next week (and my business plan is obviously a bakery). I decided to make a fake cake for part of my presentation, and I've been working on that for the past week.

It's a 6 tier square cake covered in marshmallow fondant with royal icing decorations...

And let me tell you, this has been the most painful cake I've ever made.

I don't know if it's because I've had to roll out all that fondant by hand (in addition to actually making the fondant; there's a lot of kneading involved) or because I piped 6 tiers worth of decorations in one sitting, but my muscles are so sore! (I guess it could be because I'm trying to go the gym everyday too...)

Anyway, I'll keep you updated with my progress, but I decided to wait a few days so the muscles in my right arm have time to heal and stop cramping up on me. It seriously felt like I got a Charlie horse in my forearm. Yuck.

But, no pain, no gain. And this cake is going to be totally gorgeous and worth all the trouble :)

The 90th Birthday Cake

Here we have a lovely two-tier square cake that I made for a 90th birthday party. It's a red velvet cake with cream cheese filling, Italian meringue buttercream, and fondant accents. Oh, the bow on top is gumpaste. Wilton gumpaste, not Bakels, because I learned my lesson with that one (Bakels never dries hard enough. It's quite tragic, considering how much cheaper it is.)

And I got a chance to try out my airbrush machine again! You can't tell in the picture, but the gold is very shiny and metallic.

The idea came from a larger, four tier cake I found on Google Images when I was looking for inspiration. The only thing I really had to go on was a suggestion for gold & black accents, and white frosting. So that's what I did! I wanted this cake to be really special because turning 90 is really special too! 

I'm so honored to be able to help celebrate such a momentous occasion, and for such an incredible, kind-hearted person. And shout out to my roommate, Joy, for setting me up to make the cake and assisting me along the way! :D

FL ICES Day of Sharing

Over the weekend, I had an opportunity to attend an ICES event, something I've wanted to do ever since I found out what ICES was. By the way, it's the International Cake Exploration Societe, and it's this awesome group of people who get together for classes and competitions and conventions to share the love and passion of cake decorating.

Right up my alley!

The DOS (or Day of Sharing) was in Jacksonville, FL, which is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Tampa. Just kidding, it's a 3 hour drive, through lots of back country roads, and when you have to wake up before 5am to get to get to the conference center on time, it's pretty much the worst drive in the world.

Anyway, once we finally got to Jacksonville, it was totally worth it. The day was filled with awesome demonstrations, gorgeous display cakes, the chance to talk with other decorators who are also passionate about cake (and two people even asked me if I owned my own shop! I was flattered!), and a raffle. I won a signed cookbook by Geraldine Randlesome, who is wonderful by the way. She and her husband did one of the demonstrations and I learned so much from them. They have a very obvious love for cake decorating and the pastry arts (and each other). It was sweet. :)

I also learned about a new cake decorating competition coming up in February, so I'll need to plan my entry for that. And I want to sign up for the mini classes they're offering in January. Thankfully, the classes are in Orlando, which is a little closer than Jacksonville! They are more expensive though, so it's a good thing I'm working two jobs right now.

And today I finally got my airbrush colors in the mail (except the mailroom hasn't processed all their packages yet; so I don't technically have it in my posession yet, although it's on campus!) so I'm sure next I'll be posted about all the weird colorful things I've created with the airbrush. Oh! And there's an airbrushing class in Ocala which I'm taking in 2 weeks. Another awesome opportunity I'm looking forward to! I'll keep y'all posted! :)