Wilton Discover Cake Decorating – Course 1 - Class 3

Adventure 080930

Tonight was the last of my three Wilton Method Cake Decorating classes and I'm tempted to go ahead and sign up for the next series right away. Unfortunately even though the class itself is on sale right now I don't have quite enough extra money to buy all the extra course materials. In any case it was a great class, it really filled in several of the basic skills I had been missing, and I had quite a lot of fun.


The class instructor insisted that we write something on our final cakes.... I really am going to have to get one of the letter icing stamp kits Wilton makes.

I am now an officially certified cake decorator and can blame Wilton for the evil I do with baked goods. Bwah ha ha ha ha!

Jennie linked to me!

W00t! Jennie Breeden linked to me! Excuse me while I have a fan-boy moment. (Happy dance!!!)

Although I do note that her link to me and the time-stamp from her reply to Jon's email are both awfully close to her Friday 20080926 comic....

Wilton Discover Cake Decorating – Course 1 - Class 3 prep

Experiment 080928

This is the last prep session for my Wilton Course 1 classes and I had to make a few changes from what I had been originally planning. (When I got home from work on the evening of Wednesday the 24th I found Kathy and everything in the kitchen covered in fire extinguisher powder from where the stove had developed a short and tried to burn down the house.... The new stove will be here on Friday the 3rd, but that's a little late for getting a cake baked for my last class on the 30th.)


Rice Crispy treats are the best!

What's even better than Rice Crispy treats? A Rice Crispy treat cake!

This time I remembered to add the correct amount of water thankfully.

First pass at frosting.

I think the best tip I've picked up out of this class has been waiting 15-30 minutes for the icing to harden and then using wax paper to finish smoothing the cake. The results are fantastic.

With friends like these....

With friends like these.... Apparently my buddy Jon up in Detroit is trying get me into trouble and deserves a horrible evil smackdown....

From: Jennie Breeden
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 1:16 PM
To: Barron, Jon
Subject: Re: Hehehe...you've got to see this

Wow! thanks so much for showing that to me. It's awesome! I wouldn't even pretend to send him a cease and desist order.

That is just too cool

thanks
jennieB
www.thedevilspanties.com
www.geebasonparade.com

---------------------------------------------------
On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 4:15 PM, Barron, Jon wrote:

Jennie,

'ello, long time webcomic admirer and got hooked by a friend of mine that you just happen to know. It is this mutual friend of ours that I feel compelled to share something with you that I think you'll get a kick out of.

First, his name is Sam McClanahan and he is the husband of the couple that three or four years ago dropped of that huge freaken basket of chocolate goodies for you at DragonCon that you were so kind to include them in your webcomic doing just that. I believe that your choice words at the time were "Holy crap!" :) In any case, Sam is on this cake making kick now and well...check this out:

http://samthegiant.blogspot.com/2008/09/chocolate-jennie.html

I hope you get a laugh out of it as I did. If you want to play a joke on him, I'm a network admin at a law firm up here in Detroit and I'm sure I could get any number of attorney friends of mine to draw up fake cease and desist orders if you'd like to pull one over on Sam.

Keep up the good work!!

Jon Barron

Wilton Discover Cake Decorating – Course 1 - Class 2

Adventure 080923

A three hour cake decorating class after a ten hour work day makes Sam a very tired boy, but I'm pretty happy about how my first Wilton Method cake turned out.

Wilton Discover Cake Decorating – Course 1 - Class 2 prep

Experiment 080921

I made two major mistakes in my prep work for the second Wilton class session.

1. I forgot the eggs in the Dream Whip cake recipe (with extra 1/4 cup oil) my instructor suggested until after I had mixed the other ingredients.
   
2. I forgot that I needed to add extra water to the Class Buttercream Icing recipe to use it to frost the cake until after I had finished.... Despite the fact that it was REALLY hard to frost....
   

The Wilton instructor suggested using this recipe with the addition of 1/4 cup oil. It turned out very tasty.

Note the lack of eggs. D'oh!

Whee! Vanilla Crisco flavored sugar!

Yes, I have to make sure everything is on the counter before starting. It's a compulsion.

The finished cake looks pretty good but was incredibly time consuming. I'm thinking that even knowing that I messed up the icing, the way to go here is to frost the cake like normal and then use a tub of the Wilton Decorating icing.

Caught up at last!!!

Double W00t!!! I've uploaded the last of the back-log and am caught up at last!

Move complete!

W00t!!! I've completed the move to Blogger from my old Sam's Evil Adventure & Experiment Log vanity page! Now to see if the Blogger tools and ease of access will allow me to catch up on the back-log and help me keep this updated....

Wilton Discover Cake Decorating – Course 1 - Class 1

Adventure 080916

Kathy noticed that the Maryville Hobby Lobby was running a half-price sale on their Wilton Cake Decorating classes so I rushed over and got the second to last slot on the sign-up sheet for the "Discover Cake Decorating – Course 1" series. The first class was really just a basic introduction and review of what we would need to bring to the next classes followed by a quick demonstration of some of the techniques the instructor would be showing us. Not a lot of actual content but the instructor seemed very skilled and I managed to pick up several tips to try out. I'm hoping this class will fill in some of the basic techniques I'm missing and I'll try to post pictures from each prep session and class.



(Late back-log addition added on Sat 9/20/2008.)

Great Island Festival

Adventure 080906

My Step-Dad Larry, Kathy, and I took a trip out to the Great Island Festival and spent several enjoyable hours wandering around the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum and the Fort Loudoun State Historical Area. Kathy actually spent a good portion of her childhood in Vonore and most of her extended family still lives there so she got to play tour guide. My favorite portion of the day was the mock battle.





(Late back-log addition added on Sat 9/20/2008.)