This is one of my first fondant attempts all by myself and I am super happy with how it turned out (except for the colors, more on that below). It is a four layer cake and has a white chocolate mouselline buttercream in between all layers and on the outside. The fondant is a mix of vanilla and almond. I was meant to stripe the layers but got distracted when I was assembling the cake, hahaha FAIL.

I didn’t have anywhere near enough time and as such my colors are not what I would like them to be but hey hey its here. I cut out the corner slice to take a photo and the cake is SO GOOD. So moist and rich and flavourful – and it has been in plastic for 3 days already because I knew I wouldn’t have time – how right I was!

Crap tons of photos to follow

Will stick up the other pics tonight

So apparently I now know the fundamentals of the Wilton cake decorating method. This was my cake for my final class or lesson 4. I’m not really feeling like it was my best work but considering I was in bed all day yesterday sick and still not well today I think it turned out OK.

The icing layer is too thin and you can see the chocolate cake (Nigella chocolate fudge) through which really bugs me. Also I hate the Wilton class buttercream so I frosted the cake in a classic buttercream made with butter not shortening. It’s still tooth-achingly sweet and if time had permitted I would have made an italian meringue buttercream but some of us have to work too P

Oh and once again my roses were average. But my technique definitely improved towards the end of the class.. I actually find them quite quick to make now.

Frosted with mocha buttercream and garnished with a rose (ok, a crappy rose) from my course tonight. Perfect light moist rich chocolate cupcakes, you can’t go wrong with this recipe.

The original recipe calls them “Old Fashioned” and they are just that. Perfect base recipe.

They also bake lovely and flat so perfect for decorating! Because of this, you need to be careful to not overfill the cases or they will actually sink. 2/3′s full is the magic number.

113 grams / 1/2 cup  / 1 stick butter, room temp
1-1/4 cups sugar
2 large eggs, room temp
3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup milk or water
1 teaspoons vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit/190 degrees centigrade.
2. Beat butter until softened. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
3. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until well combined.
4. Measure the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder into a small sized bowl and whisk to combine.
5. Measure out the milk or water and vanilla and stir to combine
6. Add all the dry ingredients and mix till just combined.
7. Scoop batter into cupcake cups about 2/3’s full. Turn oven down to 350 degrees F/180 degrees centigrade and bake cupcakes for about 22-25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

So I was preparing cupcakes for my 3rd lesson of the first Wilton course and I decided to try my own recipe. Bad move, considering they shrunk so bad from the cases they are completely unsuitable.

On the other hand, I feel these are moist, Dense and Rich almond babycakes. They have a dense tight crumb and marzipan flavour… my favourite..

These pull away from the cases so are best served without.

90g cream cheese
90g butter
2 eggs
3/4 cup caster sugar
1/4 tsp almond essence (optional)

1/2 cup ground almonds
1/3 cup all purpose/plain flour
1/3 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Beat butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Beat in sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time until smooth. Add essence.

Add all dry ingredients and mix all together until no flours showing.

Fill cupcake liners or a small cake tin and bake for 20 minutes or until lightly golden on top.

Ok so I have been wanting to take cake decorating courses for ages, and I finally realised no one was ever going to surprise me with these courses – despite dropping massive hints ha ha – so I enrolled myself and I went to my second lesson last night. It’s been a long time since I have been in that kind of environment and I really enjoyed myself.
The best part was learning that I didn’t have to buy the course 1 kit, I had most of the items in it, which meant I could buy some other stuff instead!! So I bought the cake leveller (so unnecessary but anyone who has seen a layer cake I have made knows I need this), a big stepped spatulata, and a dough scraper. Along with some disposable bags, extra couplers, flower nails… ok so you end up spending a bit more than you expect but hey its fun.

Oh yeah and did I mention that the “Wilton Buttercream” tastes disgusting. Next week we get to make cupcakes and don’t tell but I will be making my own icing hardy ha.

We kind of ran out of time last night to actually decorate our cakes and this is how mine turned out, I brought it to work today .. the cake itself was pretty gross – next time I will stick to a recipe and not get so lazy – ha ha at filling with jam lol.