WILTON COURSE 3 FINAL CAKE

This cake is my final cake for the course 3. I must admit that it took much more than I expected. (Around 7 hours from start to finish including the time I spent on making the roses). I did not cover the cake with fondant as I was normally supposed to do. So it's covered with buttercream instead. I made 2- 10" cakes and 2- 6" cakes. I used chocolate pastry cream for the filling. And the roses are fondant roses. When I look at it I see so many mistakes but I think it looks pretty no matter what:)

"TWO SWEET BABY GIRLS" FONDANT CAKE:)

Click on the picture to enlarge

This cake was for two of my friends' daughters who just turned 1. My daughter made all the figurines. She is really good at making figures. I think all those playing with playdough since she was little paid off:) The cake was a chocolate cake covered with ganache underneath the fondant.

ANOTHER DIAPER CAKE

I have made this diaper cake upon my husband's request. He wanted to keep it at work to show people:) It is almost the same style with the other ones I made with a few little changes. I just wanted to put the picture here.

BACK TO FLOWERS:)

GIFT PACKAGE

MY FIRST FONDANT ROSES

These fondant roses are from Wilton Course 3, second week. I need to make 40-50 of these for my final cake for course three. I will include pictures to show how to make these roses in a few days.

CHOCOLATE GANACHE CAKE

I've made this cake for one of our friends' going away party. It was a chocolate cake with chocolate pastry cream filling, bananas and covered with chocolate ganache. It was delicious. I also decorated it with some yellow buttercream roses that I made. Here are the recipes:

Chocolate Cake

3 cups flour- sifted
2.5 teaspoons baking powder
3-4 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups sugar
2/3 cup butter
2 eggs
1.5 teaspoons vanilla sugar
1 1/4 cups milk

Preheat oven to 370 degrees. Grease and flour bottom of two 8-inch round pans. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, vanilla sugar and cocoa powder in a large bowl and set aside. Cream sugar and butter together until fluffy. Add eggs to the creamed mixture and beat until thoroughly mixed. Add milk and mix well. Add flour mixture and beat around one minute. Divide the batter into the prepared pans equally. Bake 30-35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool layers in pans for around 10 minutes and remove the cakes from the pans and let them cool completely on wire racks. After they are cooled completely divide each cake carefully into two layers.

Chocolate Pastry Cream

2 cups milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 tablespoon corn starch
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
3 tablespoons butter

Mix all ingredients except the butter in a pan. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens. Remove from heat right after it starts boiling. When it is still hot add the butter and mix with a mixer for a few minutes. Let it cool completely before filling the cake.

Chocolate Ganache

10 ounces of semisweet chocolate, chopped into small pieces
8 ounces of heavy whipping cream

Place the chopped chocolate into a bowl. Heat the heavy cream and bring just to a boil. (Do not boil). Remove from heat and immediately pour onto the chopped chocolate. Stir until all the chocolate is melted and smooth. Let it cool to the room temperature. Place it in the fridge over night and whip with a mixer right before you cover your cake with it.

Putting Everything Together:

Put the bottom layer of the cake onto the cake board or the cake serving plate. Wet the cake with a few tablespoons of milk. Spread 1/3 of the pastry cream on this layer. Cover the cream with sliced bananas (or any fruit that you like). Cover it with the second layer of the cake and repeat the same procedure. Repeat with the third layer too and put the last layer of the cake on top. Cover the whole cake with ganache and decorate it as you like. I decorated it with buttercream but the lefover ganache can be used to decorate too.

WILTON COURSE 2 FINAL CAKE

I've made this cake at the end of Wilton Course 2. It was a two-layer, oval, yellow cake with buttercream frosting. All the flowers were made with royal icing 2 weeks in advance. The blue birdies were made with the color flow technique. The sides of the cake is covered with buttercream icing using the basketweave technique.

BOUTIQUE CHOCOLATE

I have made these chocolates for a friend for her baby shower. This was my first experience with melting, coloring and molding the chocolate. It is pretty time consuming but fun to make. Kids made a few too. I used these candy melts and just colored the white chocolate with these candy colorings. And these are the candy molds I used for the baby theme. All these can be found at Michaels craft stores or any place that carry Wilton products. Here on this link you can find instructions. My chocolates didn't have lollipop sticks but if you choose a lollipop mold it is easy to attach the sticks. I wrapped each chocolate in lollipop bags and tied with nice satin ribbon.