The Pink Whisk Cake Decorating Day
Last week Kim & I headed off to a cake decorating course held by Seasoned Courses. Our tutor was to be none other than Ruth, runner up of The Great British Bake Off and author of The Pink Whisk.
Kim & I were both excited but nervous. We even had some Rescue Remedy to calm our nerves before we went in haha! 
I was dreading the class being full of experienced cake decorators but pretty much everyone was in the same boat – ready and willing to learn.
I had a cake dilemma the day before the course. We were told to bring a fruit cake with us to decorate. However, Gary & I hate fruit cakes so I asked if I could bring a plain sponge cake instead. No problem, so I set about baking my Madeira cake. The first attempt came out way too thin, and with a big dome in the middle. The second attempt was in the oven for 3 and a half hours and still hadn’t cooked through. Poor Gary had to stay up and supervise it as I was too tired and took myself off to bed at around midnight!
So, I arrived cake-less which was a tad embarrassing but I was supplied with a cake “dummy” to use instead. And once the marzipan layer was complete – mine looked just like everyone else’s cake!
We learnt how to cover our cake in marzipan and sugar-paste (not as easy as it sounds) and we practised piping icing in different patterns.
The best bit was trying to colour the icing without getting dye all over our hands and learning how to make lovely little flower decorations – it’s not as hard as I thought it would be, but just needs lots of practice to get them looking 100%!
Here is my attempt. Of course it’s very girly looking with sparkly butterflies lol..
And here is Kim with hers:
Some more piccies:
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 6th, 2011 at 9:24 pm and is filed under Baking, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 7th, 2011 at 9:45 am
Wow, what a brilliant day, I love Ruth! Your cakes all look brilliant and very professional. I bought myself a jumbo piping nozzle the other week and I'm inspired to test it out this weekend now! Those tables look back-breakingly low though, ouch!
July 7th, 2011 at 6:53 pm
Woo hoo, Pink Whisk day! Your cake looked so good, I kept forgetting it wasn't an actual cake! Did you pick off the marzipan and icing and eat that?! We still have loads of mine left, I couldn't even get rid of it in work. Everyone seems to hate fruit cake! Lovely pic of you and Ruth, wonder what skilled photographer took that
Wish I hadn't had an attack of the shys! Thanks for a fab day x
July 7th, 2011 at 8:10 pm
I looove marzipan. I would have done like Kim suggested and just eat the marzipan and icing…although it all looks so pretty!
July 7th, 2011 at 8:56 pm
Ah, that's brilliant! It's looks like it was so much fun
It's funny that you had to take Rescue Remedy, I'm glad I'm not the only one that gets worked up and worried about things like that! Your 'cake' turned out looking beautiful 
July 8th, 2011 at 9:36 pm
Ooooh wow! What a show off
Sounds like an amazing day!
July 10th, 2011 at 11:13 pm
Looks like a great day. Love your butterflies, they make for a lovely decoration!
July 11th, 2011 at 9:54 pm
Wow, your cakes looks fab. What a great idea for a class to cake. I would love to do this.
July 19th, 2011 at 10:08 pm
Looks like a fab day – great post. Does this mean you've got the cake decorating bug now? x
August 8th, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Oh wow, my best friend would have loved this! How exciting that you got to go