Wilton Tall Cakes class

After smoothing over my royal icing disaster

Posting on my "tall cakes" class seems to have eluded my attention up until this point.  In the midst of taking the Wilton flowers class I spent three hours on a Saturday afternoon learning how top properly stack cakes.  I guess I had always assumed that it would be as simple as placing one cake on to of another, however that was not the case. I'm sure with your basic box cake recipe you could safely stack any way you choose, but as soon as you move onto denser cakes and more layers, I can see why you would want more support.

I brought in a 6 inch and an 8 inch double layer cake.  Stacking them included placing dowels in the lower level of the cake (the 8 inch tier) and leaving the top tier on its own cake board.  I also didn't know that to cut a stacked cake, you are supposed to remove each layer before serving it.  Lots of little details.  We were supposed to bring things for decorating to class, so I brought a lot of the flowers from the class I was taking. 

Originally I had planned to do flowers on the top and practice one technique for putting music notes and a staff on the bottom, but using royal icing wasn't as easy as I'd hoped. First of all, I had to kneel on the floor the entire time I was attempting to draw the lines for the staff on.  Second, I either need stronger hands or a thinner icing because it was very hard to lay down an even, steady line. Finally, I had colored the icing with Wilton black gel color and it turned out an oily purple instead of black... In general I just wasn't at all happy with how it was turning out.  I ran out of time in class to finish anyway, but when I got home I scraped the idea and used more flowers.

Because royal icing dries hard, it was relatively easy (with patience) to remove what I had applied to the cake.  A fresh coat of buttercream smoothed over the whole mess.  I finished it off with another cascade of flowers and another round of dimensional dots. 

Final product!

A few more notes about this cake.  First, I still need to work on shells- definitely an improvement over my last attempt, but just not quite there.  Next, I need more practice on centering when I stack, so expect more posts on tall cakes! Finally, I used a recipe given to me by my Wilton instructor and it was great!  I loved how tall the individual layers were and that one recipe made enough for both tiers. For the filling I used pureed strawberries- the end result tasted very much like a strawberry shortcake!  The only thing I would change is the icing I used.  Instead of butter and vanilla flavoring I used almond to match the cake.  It was good, but very sweet (not just my opinion).  Next time I will probably put half the amount called for and use vanilla for the rest.

The top half of the cake was consumed at my staff meeting for once (first time I've brought anything with me) and the bottom half was sent to work with Chris.  Everyone seemed to really like it.