Wilton Course 2 Completed!

I completed Course 2 of my cake decorating classes last week! In Course 2 we learned how to make seven different kinds of flowers out of royal icing. For those who don't know, royal icing is a lot thicker consistency than the regular buttercream icing I used to ice and decorate my cakes in Course 1. I still iced my cake and did borders w/ the buttercream, but after making a batch of royal that turned out too thin, I quickly learned how important the consistency of the icing you use for flower making is. I had to re-do all my flowers from that class since my flowers turned out to be one globby mess.

The flowers we learned in this course included violets, daisies, pansies, primroses, victorian roses, daffodills, and crisanthamums.

We also learned a new border and how to create a basket weave around the cake. I especially like how the cake pans we bought w/ Course 2 were oval because it definitely added to the basket look.

Close-up view of the flowers.

The birds are 100% edible. The markers used to color in the eyes and beaks are even special edible markers. These were made out of color flow icing. Similar to royal icing, it's just powdered sugar and water, however I think you use a bit more meringue powder than what's required for the royal icing. Basically you create an outline for your pattern, in this case a bird, and fill it in with the already colored icing. We let them dry for a couple weeks before using them. It's totally safe though! These will never go bad unlike the buttercream which will go bad after 2 weeks due to the shortening that is used to make it.

Today after work I'll start Course 3! I'm excited, I finally get to learn how to work w/ fondant which I am a HUGE fan of! Can't wait!