Last night was my final class in the brand new Wilton Decorating Basics class. I have to say, it was a success!



Just two years ago I hosted a baby shower for my sister and had a friend ice the cupcakes for me for fear of ruining them myself. More recently I purchased a cupcake decorating set myself and followed the directions on the Wilton website and taught myself some cupcake basics. But as I prepared for this class, I realized that I had never baked a cake before - I didn't even own a cake pan!

So with that in mind, here is my final project. The taste was fabulous (I am SO eating cake for lunch today!) - I used a Duncan Hines French Vanilla cake mix but substituted Moscato (a really yummy sweet wine) for the water... it makes for a scrumptiously moist cake. I sliced it into three layers (OK, so there were 4 to begin with, but the plain cake was just so yummy, The Princess and I ate an entire layer before I could assemble it!) and filled the layers with ooey-gooey milk chocolate icing. Mmm...

My favorite (and most successful) flower from the class was the Shaggy Mum, so I knew I'd use it for my final cake. I pre-iced a handful of Vanilla Wafers with the same white icing that covered my cake so that in class I could focus on the flowers themselves.



They came out great, if I do say so myself! My technique is far from perfect, but it's good enough for the people I'll be baking for - and the cake underneath tasted FABULOUS (which is what really matters anyway, right?)!