Wilton Course 2, Class 1

Tonight I started the second course of the Wilton cake classes.

Just like with the first course, you need to have a kit for the class ($35). My in-laws gave me the ultimate cake decorating kit for my birthday which has everything you need for all 3 Wilton courses. So I didn't need to buy my kit this time. The only other thing we had to buy for tonight was a package of gum paste ($10) and a box of rolled fondant in neon colors ($10). Of course there were about 20 other things we had to bring from home as well!

We started class by making a "glue" to use to hold the flowers together. We made it using a small amount of gum paste and water. Then we learned how to color our gum paste. What I didn't know is that you use the gum paste to create the flowers and you use the colored fondant to color the gum paste. Basically, you take a ball of gum paste (which is white) and knead in a small ball of fondant (which is colored) until your gum paste is all an even color!

Once we had 3 colors made up, it was time to make some flowers!

First, we learned how to do the button flower. We had to roll out the gum paste nice and smooth then use our press to create the flowers and buttons. It sounds easier than it is. The thing with gum paste is that once it's exposed to air, it starts to dry out. So the entire time, you have to put any scraps immediately into ziploc bags and cover anything that you have out. This takes a lot of thought and time to do. Once the flowers are cut, you put them in a cup to create a curved shape and let them dry that way for awhile (we let ours sit for about an hour). At that time, we assembled them using our "glue" and here's how they turned out! While waiting for our button flowers to dry, we started on pansies. These took more steps than the button flowers did, and honestly I thought they were difficult and a pain in the rear to make. I can't describe how we did them exactly because it's hard without a visual, but they turned out nice!

I will say that for our 2 hour class, all we got done was 4 flowers! I know we're learning, but holy cow these are time consuming! I can't imagine having to make all of these flowers for a cake-it would take forever! I think I'll stick to my buttercream for now!