Wilton Course 2- Final Class Cake

Tonight I completed Wilton Course 2!

Since I already described the royal icing flower making process (pansies, primroses, daffodils, victorian roses, violets, apple blossoms, and daisies) and the color flow birds in my previous entry, there isn't too much more to say about this cake.  

The oval cake pans for this cake are included in the Course 2 kit.  I decided to try another recipe, one I actually got from a baking class, called 'Anna's Swedish Butter Cake'.  I had enough batter to fill the two oval pans and make a couple of cupcakes, so I got to taste it already.  It is very soft and moist, and supposedly it keeps very well. 

Also, I finally got a Sam's club membership (and subsequently bought 14 lbs of powdered sugar...) and invested in some real vanilla extract (as opposed to artificial).  Oh my god what a difference.  The aroma coming off the batter was amazing, and the batter tasted amazing.  I will definitely stick with real vanilla in the future wherever possible.

Tonight in class, we covered basket-weave and rope borders.  After practicing each technique for a couple minutes, we worked on our cakes.  At the end, we began putting on the flowers.  I ran out of time in class, so at home I finished applying the flowers and birds, and piped the filler greenery.

I picked up some good pointers on the basket-weave.  My icing was a more appropriate consistency than my first basket weave cake (http://www.cakesbyroxanne.com/2010/01/next-cake-adventure.html), so I feel like you can see more of the details. 

It's a little busy, but with so many kinds of flowers to fit on there, I just decided to run with it! :)

In the pictures in my course book, I thought the birds were kinda dumb looking, but with their shiny paint job, I feel like they helped create nice focal points on the cake.

If you want the truth, I laugh at a decent number of cakes in the Wilton course books.  Nothing against Wilton, but some of the cakes just look ridiculous to me.  With some of them, I think the color schemes are just unfortunate, but some of them are just hilarious.  For example, there's a lamb cake in the back of the course 2 book that has an uncanny resemblance to George Washington...  but I digress. :)

Close-up of one of the flower clusters

So that's all for Course 2! 

But not to worry, I have a Beginning Fondant class this Saturday, and some more cakes planned for this month! :)