Wilton Flowers and Cake Design in a nutshell

I took another 4 week Wilton course through Michael's in July.  This month was "Flowers and Cake Design".  I really enjoyed the opportunity to learn what even more of the decorating tips I have are used for, and of course the chance to learn how to create a few beautiful flowers.

In the first class we worked on using gum paste and fondant. We made two flowers, a button flower (fanciful) and a pansy (more lifelike).  They were both relatively easy, however it felt almost out of place in the class since we worked with royal icing for the next 3 weeks.

We learned how to make a variety of roses. From left to right pictured below: the Wilton rose, a primrose, and rosebuds. I also improvised an made mini roses.  For some reason the mini ones were a lot easier to make and they turned out adorable.

In addition to the roses, we also worked on apple blossoms, daffodils, violets, and lilies. I found I was decent at making everything except the primroses.  For some reason I never did get the shape of the petals the way I wanted it to look.

We used stiff royal icing for everything.  I think it's a pain to make- it took me the better part of an hour to make a few batches- but it was much easier to work with.  I'm also going to assume that having a stand mixer would definitely speed up the process, or at least make it so I could do  something else while it mixes for ten minutes.

I once made a batch that turned out like fondant.  I'm not quite sure what went wrong, but I plan on using it to frost cookies.  It's almost the consistency of play dough so I should be able to think of something fun to with it.

The last day of class was devoted to decorating our final cakes with all of our flowers and learning a few more flowers not taught during the course of the class. We learned how to make another type of pansy with royal icing and also how to make another version of a mum.

I think I spent the better part of a morning and afternoon making extra flowers to use on the cake.  I tried making a few tiger lilies just to see how it would turn out, and I think it looked pretty realistic. The cakes I've been making lately have been practices for my wedding cake.  I believe I found the recipe I would like to use (it's by Martha Stewart).  Chris even liked it, and he's generally not a fan of cake.  The dimensional dots on the side are also an idea I've been toying with for the cake, only I think I might try it with edible pearls instead.  Overall, I was really please with how this cake turned out.

-Beth