Cake Numero Uno

If you remember from reading a previous post I am taking a cake decorating class. My first class was last Monday and boy, did I have fun. The teacher, Annie, has her own bakery and has been decorating cakes for 30 years. She began when she was in high school. She has a great way of teaching I have already learned a bunch from her. There are 9 people in the class and two of them are men.
I didn't want to make a cake from a box so I looked on CakeCentral.com for a recipe. I had to buy new cake pans because I learned that the regular cake pans you buy in any ol' store have angled sides which doesn't make for good layering. I needed to buy pans with straight sides. Instead of going to the specialty cake decorating stores I went to Michaels and Hobby Lobby where I found everything I needed. I even learned about a product called Baker's Joy which is one hundred million times better than Pam. Oh, yeah! It really is.
This is my cake after I leveled it. The one on the right looks slanted but you'll have to trust me that it isn't. I wrapped these layers in saran wrap and took them to my class.If you've ever watched "Cake Boss" or any of the other cake decorating shows on TV you will have heard them talking about a crumb coat. This is just a light layer of icing to catch the crumbs and keep them trapped so you can frost the cake so it looks good. This is what mine looked like.
After the crumb coat is dry you can put the main layer of icing on the cake. I have a turntable which makes frosting the cake much easier. After you spread the icing on you take a cup of hot water and dip a metal spatula into the water. The heat from the water heats the metal of the spatula and you can smooth the knife over the frosted cake and it melts the icing to make it look smooth. Pretty, huh? I put a star border around the bottom before I remembered to take a picture.

One of the supplies we had to buy was a package of clown heads. Today was the one and only day we were going to work with clowns which was a good thing because no one in the class is a clown fan. Creepy clowns. What's underneath the make-up that they have to wear so much anyway? And the big "friendly" smile doesn't fool me. We learned how to make clown bodies so we could stick the heads on and make a "cute" cake. I suppose it is cute but I was looking hard at the store for something other than clown heads on a pick. The only other thing I could find on a pick were topless Barbies and I don't think that would have looked quite right.

My top border got a bit off center but for my first cake I think it turned out well. I sure enjoyed making it and my family was impressed. We had it for Family Home Evening treat. I discovered the cake recipe wasn't the greatest. It called for all-purpose flour and it tasted like all-purpose flour. I wonder if I use the same recipe but switch to cake flour instead if that would help. But I'm thinking of doing a chocolate cake next.

Cute little guy. I guess he's not so bad. Who knows what will be next. I can't wait!