Last Cake Standing...Final Cake Class

Okay well I am totally kidding about the last cake standing part, all of our cakes looked awesome, but this was the last part of Wilton Course I. Lets start with the cake, my cake was a peanut butter cupcake recipe I found on TastyKitchen (Thanks Pioneer Woman!) When I tell you that this cake was amazing I am not exaggerating...the peanut butter flavor is not overwhelming and the chocolate ganache I used as a filling (from the Candy Bar Cookbook) perfectly complimented it. (recipe for both below) My mom's cake was a chocolate 4-layer cake with a marshmallow cream filling. Super moist and awesome, however since we made and prepped the cake a day ahead of time the marshmallow filling seeped into the cake. This did make the cake even moister but you were unable to grasp the marshmallow deliciousness of it. We are not sure if this is a good thing yet....Unfortunately I still can not get my mom to give me those recipes.

Now for the decorating portion; we had to prep nine Wilton roses and 20 swirl flowers 3 days ahead of time so they were dry when it came time for class. We made them out of the buttercream recipe in class but they can also be made with royal icing to cut the drying time.
This picture is of a few of my roses drying...the tops were a little cracked but other wise they were amazing (not to toot my own horn or anything)
To fix the cracked tops you can add a little piping gel to the stiff consistency buttercream or a spritz of water.

close up of the roses...

Now for the swirl flowers...those did not take as long to make as the roses did but we kept making them until we got twenty which were perfect.Close up of some swirl flowers...

To make swirl flowers you put tip 2D on a piping bag without a coupler and fill with buttercream (or royal icing). Start with your hand and wrist turned inward and apply constant pressure with the tip of the bag directly on the cake or wax paper. As soon as the frosting starts to come out rotate your wrist clockwise. Release pressure and pick up the bag. Then use tip 3 to create the center dot.

I iced my cake in chocolate buttercream while my mom iced hers in vanilla buttercream. I recommend using chocolate because you were not able to see the crumbs.

Now for assembling the cake...first came the rose bouquet.We began by apply a heaping amount of the buttercream we used to frost the cake and then pressing a rose into this mountain. (excuse the quality of these photos...I took them with my mom's iphone)
Next, on each side we made another glob of buttercream and placed a rose at a 45 degree angle on each.We completed the rose bouquet by adding two more globs of frosting and roses between the two roses we already had laid out (total of 6 roses on the outside and one in the middle)

Next we added dots to the cake for decoration. I took my chocolate buttercream and added some more white to create a light brown. It looked like it should taste like coffee or peanut butter, but it didn't: ( I tried to make mine in a cool pattern...doesn't look like it worked though.) If anyone has a good tasting buttercream recipe please share! As pretty as this buttercream is, it tastes to commercial.

So ignore the fact that the border and swirl flowers are on there already for now please.
But as you can see there was a lot of negative space were you saw the brown buttercream holding the roses together. To fix this we added leaves. I choose to do the basic leaf with tip 67. Other options were the stand up leaf (my frosting was to thin for that) or the ruffle leaf (which I still have not mastered yet)

The border I chose to put on the cake is shells. Every three shells I took some buttercream and glued the swirl flowers on. I did not need to add the extra buttercream but I wanted to insure that the flowers stuck because we had a 20 minute car ride home before I could take photos with a real camera.

I also had a lot of extra swirl flowers so I took four and placed them on the upper border of the cake (again using buttercream as glue). After I made some leaves on the swirl flowers for some additional texture.
All of the cakes!!!! Our class has come so far!

Now that I'm done with telling you how we made this delicious and beautiful cake here are some awesome pictures!
And for the best part...the insideThis is my peanut butter cake with a chocolate ganche filling, the ganache hardened but tasted oh so amazing.
And this is my mother's chocolate cake with marshamallow creme filling...notice how you can not see the white but oh boy is it there.

Recipes!!!

Peanut Butter Cupcakes (adapted from mommyskitchen on TastyKitchen.com):
Ingredients:
1. ⅔ cups Shortening
2. 1-½ cup Granulated Sugar
3. 3 whole Eggs
4. 1 cup Creamy Peanut Butter
5. ¾ cups Milk
6. 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
7. 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
8. 1-¾ cup All-purpose Flour

Directions:
1. Cream shortening and sugar together.
2. Add eggs and beat well.
3. Add peanut butter and beat well.
3. Add milk and vanilla extract alternately with the baking powder and flour.
4. Using a ice cream scooper fill the muffing liners about 3/4 full with batter. Bake for 20 -25 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool cupcakes completely on a wire rack and frost with peanut butter frosting

Fudge Frosting (adapted from The Candy Bar Cookbook):
Ingredients:
1. 16-18 marshmallows
2. 2-1/2 squares unsweetened chocolate (1 oz each) -I used Schaffenberger Bittersweet Dark
3. 1/3 cup butter
4. 1-1/4 cup sugar
5. 1/3 cup milk
6. 1 Teaspoon vanilla
I also added 1 tablespoon of Meringue Powder to thicken it up, but I tihnk that it would thicken without the Meringue Powder as well.

Directions:
1. In a heavy saucepan over medium-low heat, melt the chocolate and the butter together and stir until smooth
2. stir in sugar, milk and vanilla
3. Increase heat to medium, stirring constantly. Bring the mixture to a rapid boil for 1 minute, still stirring.
4. Remove from heat and let the mixture stand 2 minutes.

As you notice the marshmallows are not involved in making this part. You are supposed to take the marshmallows and cut them into thirds (still in circles) and place them in warm water for 1 minute and remove. Then, since this recipe went along with a cake, you place the wet circles on the cake and pour the chocolate frosting over it. This does sound delicious but but what I needed.

So still wanted to obtain a marshmallow fudge taste I took 3-5 marshmallows and placed them into the chocolate mixture right after it boiled, and even though it looks like they are not melting when I placed the entire mixture into my kitchen aid and added the tablespoon of Meringue Powder they melted created a thicker filling for my cake.

Now I recommend taking Wilton Course I if you want to learn basics such as icing the cake, writing, and simple designs. Also if you want to continue into Course II and III (which is what I want to do) unfortunately I made a deal with my mom that we will take it if I finish my summer reading book before next Thursday (when class starts) Wish me Luck!

With love and cupcakes,
CookTeen!