Registration for Cake Love 2011 began this time last year but I didn't actually register for any classes until early this summer. There was one class that suddenly peaked my interest and luckily I registered in time to Creatures 101 (which sold out) with Lauren Kitchens from the Food Network Challenge. I was super excited to sculpt with rice cereal treats and to finally work with modeling chocolate. I felt the day couldn't come soon enough...
September 24th finally rolled around and the wait was over. It was a 4-hr class which started early at 6 am. I learned that Lauren is extremely creative, informative, and most of all, an awesome instructor. Our class was filled with talent - Just have a look at our sea of Muppets!
As I mentioned on yesterdays blog, it was recently my daughter's birthday so she really put me to the test by having me create another Muppet cake for her. It was a lengthy process that took a good week to complete. I found that modeling chocolate is extremely difficult to make from scratch. And, at one point, I thought that the entire batch was unusable. Thankfully it just required a TON of kneading.
Another surprise was my use of homemade fondant. The arms were simple enough to attach in class with Satin Ice, but I found my version to be finicky because if I attached them too soon the fondant would sag down. Then after I decided to let them sit out before attaching, the raised arm cracked almost immediately after I had attached the head. Oh well, I ran out of time to fix the arm problem so I left it cracked.
In the entire rush of things I didn't even get a great photograph of the cake in its entirety. The good news after all this was that my daughter insisted on a strawberry shortcake cake (recipe courtesy of Pioneer Woman) and it was sure outstanding!
I'll have another Muppet experience in a few short weeks for my son's birthday. Hopefully, the second time around will be less stressful... but probably not!
There you have it, mum inspired by Lauren Kitchens.
No comments:
Post a Comment