My New Blog

Let me start off by saying that this blog is mostly for myself. I don't honestly expect anyone will follow it. And that is ok. I think this blog will mostly consist of my failures in cake making and decorating, and hopefully a few advances and successes as well. Oh, and I expect a lot of pictures. A lot.
I have not really had a hobby in over 10 years. After high school, I worked full-time and took 18 credits a semester at college. There was little time for anything else. Then I got married and was pregnant within a year. Let me tell you, kids take up too much of your time for you to really have a hobby. Then I got an email from Michaels (the craft store) about 2 weeks ago. It said their cake decorating classes were currently 50% off. I went to the store the next day and signed up.
The class is entitled Wilton Cake Decorating Course 1, or something like that anyway. I had my first class this past Monday and will continue every Tuesday night for the rest of the month, when I will hopefully be able to jump right into Course 2. We had about 12 women in the class and decided we would break into 2 classes, in order to get more one-on-one direction. I opted to switch to Tuesdays. The first class was mostly to go over what we would learn throughout the rest of the month, but I did learn some interesting things.
ONE: when icing a cake, use tons of frosting to begin with, then scrape off the extra. TWO: after your icing has set a couple of minutes, you can lay wax paper over it and run your spatula over it to smooth out your icing THREE: you can also lay a paper towel over it and the icing will have a faint pattern. Very cool. FOUR: if you want a certain shape decorated on your cake, make a light impression in the icing with a cookie cutter. Now I know this last one seems obvious, but I had never thought of it before. Nor had anyone else I have told.
I am to bring a frosted cake to class on Tuesday, where we will be learning star tips. I have done a couple hundred star tips in my day, but I fully expect to learn something new. It is nice having something to do that is just for me and I am super excited about this whole venture.