The Christopher Crew: Cake Decorating Basics 1

   So this post has nothing to do with the title of our blog: Tillman: the 1st years. It's all about a fun night I had out with McKinley. For those who don't know, McKinley has a love for baking. She has a nice stash of hand-me-down baking utensils, supplies, pans, etc.

   Recently she learned that Hobby Lobby is offering a set of 3 cake decorating classes. Well, I love watching those baking/cupcake/cake decorating shows on tv, I remember my mom decorating cakes when I was a kid and eating the icing and watching her do the basket weaving and other techniques on the kitchen counter and letting us lick the icing off when she was finished, and I love spending time with McKinley, so I made the off-hand comment to McKinley that I would take the cake decorating classes with her, not thinking much else about it.

   Well, that was about 4-5 days ago. Look where it got me. I spent this Friday evening at class 1 of 3 in a cake decorating class. We had fun, were the youngest ones there, had the least experience, laughed the loudest, and stayed the longest. We learned a few basic of cake baking, leveling, icing, etc.

   Then we moved to the fun part, the decorating. We got to put icing in bags and go to town practicing making stars with a tip. I was having an okay time in the class up to this point. The instructor's personality wasn't quite as cheerful and outgoing as I was expecting, and we were listening and watching her do most of the activities. BUT, when we got to make stars and I got comments like, "Oh those are perfect," and, "Those look really nice," my attitude changed a little. :) I started getting into it more and even became a little (jokingly) competitive with McKinley about who could make the better stars. I won, of course. :)

   Anyways, we had a good time and I look forward to playing around with my new Wilton cake decorating/baking kit. We're not sure when we will take the next class, maybe next Friday. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes. (*Even though the cookies may look good, they taste gross. The cookies have no flavor - Pillsbury roll - and the icing has an unpleasant flavor - Wilton brand. And yes, I still ate them anyways.) The next time, I will take my own homemade cookies and icing to work with. McKinley and I both were very short on time this week and had to make do with convenience.

   Here is a glimpse of what we created tonight: The instructor showed us how to level and ice a cake with layers, but I didn't think to get a picture of any of that.