Wilton Decorating Course - Flowers and Cake Design

You may recall that I quite recently completed the Wilton Decorating Basics course at the Greensborough Cake Decorating Centre (whoah, that's a lot of links!). Well, the next logical step was to enrol in Wilton Flowers and Cake Design. As discussed previously, the Wilton way isn't the only way, or necessarily the best way, but I personally respond well to that sort of instruction.

This course was held over four weeks and, again, we built up our skills and ended with a pretty cake at the end. Because I'm lazy I will just post photos of the flowers we learnt (piping flowers in royal icing has always been something I wanted to know how to do), and a picture of the finished cake.

First up, we learnt to make these cute but crazily annoying button flowers out of gumpaste, using a mould. There's quite a good chance I won't use the mould again, and, that if I do, I will quite likely swear and throw it across the room at some point - the flowers have a propensity to stick (although you do eventually get the hang of poking them out of the mould without destroying the flower). But if someone really wanted these cute button-style flowers, well I guess I'd make them again... after a calming drink or two!*

Next was a pansy, again from gum paste. We were taught to use a balling tool for this one. I'm not a big fan of the pansy - I found it to be quite an ungainly flower - but perhaps that has more to do with my clumsy hands than anything else. It might look nicer a little smaller, too.

After that we learnt to make royal icing - you can read about it until the cows come home, but until you've actually seen it I think you'd pretty much just be lucky to get the consistency right. I've done it as per instructions three times before, and improved each time but still not had the desired result. But once I saw it demonstrated it was okay. The key is, it should defy gravity! But if you need to use your #1 tip then you should be thinning it down, otherwise you have no hope of pushing it through that tiny hole.

The next few flowers were variations on the same theme - apple blossoms,

primroses (don't ask me why it roatated the picture... also, I think my pink icing was a wee bit runny, and I should also mention that most of my flowers had a small accident on their way home so they're a bit smooshed),

daffodils (my favourites! Can't wait to make them with orange centres), and

violets.

We also learnt to make a Wilton rose

(the full seven outer petals)

(only five outer petals)

and an oriental lily (mine's a bit wonky, but that's because my brain is incapable of dividing an invisible circle into six even pieces. This is one I'd love to improve on!).

Lastly, we were taught reverse shells and ropes (ropes are used below, although not good ones!)

and basket weave, to make the final product upon which we stuck the flowers from earlier classes.

Again, I will show you how to make these at some point when I'm less lazy, but I reiterate that there is no substitute for a proper class. I strongly urge you to find one near you!

*the author in no way advocates the use of alcohol as a sedative or other mood-altering device to assist in the more frustrating steps of cake decorating. But advocating and casually suggesting are two quite different things, right??