Friday, May 2, 2008

Cake decorating at William Angliss

For the past 4 Tuesday evenings, I have been attending a cake decorating class at the William Angliss Institute of TAFE in La Trobe Street, Melbourne. Our teacher, Greg Williams, has so far taken us through icing a fruit cake, making sugar flowers, creating a floral spray for a cake using sugar flowers and leaves and ribbon bows, and decorating with buttercream frosting. The results of my labours are pictured below.




Iced fruit cake with floral spray



Close up of floral spray


Sponge filled with jam and buttercream and decorated with buttercream and coconut


Close up of buttercream frosting

My buttercream piping effort was not the greatest because I didn't want to fuss around with umpteen dozen colours of icing or go for an elaborate but ugly design. However, despite its obvious flaws, I like its simplicity, and now that I have learnt the techniques, I can practice and improve in my own time.

I was disappointed because I went to a restaurant straight after class with my completed cakes, and the staff knocked over the buttercream iced cake twice, accounting for the smooshed piping around the edges in two places. Oh well - it still tasted the same, and I inflicted it on my work colleagues the next day.

There is one week of class left, where I believe that we are going to learn how to decorate a cake using chocolate and jelly. I am looking forward to it!

20 comments:

Tammy said...

Your cakes look great!! Your roses are beautiful!

adele said...

That white cake is stunning. And squished or not, I'm sure the buttercream cake was dead tasty. :)

Susan @ SGCC said...

Oh, wow! I am soooo jealous! What fun you must be having. I am very impressed with your results. The sugar flowers look gorgeous! And your piping skills are great. I am a terrible piper!

Silvia - Magnolia Wedding Planner said...

Wow they look both so amazing. You really seem a professionist darling.
I'd love to do a class like this but in florence the idea of cake is for now still restricted to millefoglie and tiramisù :-(..I'm so bored of that stuff even if they are so tasty..
Great indeed!
Silvia

Unknown said...

ok...i wont be able to make those in a million years...wow!

btw,
You're invited to my chinese take-out party, check out the details in my blogpost:
http://mochachocolatarita.blogspot.com/2008/05/celebrating-my-88th-post-chinese-take.html

Hope you'll play along :)

Looking forward to your take on chinese take-out ^_^

Anna said...

Wow, they're so beautiful! I especially love the first one; I'd buy that in a shop!

Mary said...

Your cakes are so pretty! You're really talented!

Pixie said...

Ah cakelaw (god what is your real name? lol) It's just stunning! Great work indeed and how I would love to take a baking class myself one day. Damn it, I'm going to request it as a bday gift! ;)

giz said...

How cool are you!!! Psychgrad and I are starting a course next week - we'll be posting our outcomes as well - we should follow each other's progress. You're doing a great job!!!

Anonymous said...

So pretty!

Anonymous said...

WOW! That floral spray is spectacular and the icing so elegant :). You're becoming a deco-icing-artist.

Peter M said...

...and it shows...they are look wonderful...like a display piece.

Anonymous said...

perfect sweets!!!!!!!

Glenna said...

Gorgeous!

Maggie said...

Breathtakingly beautiful flowers. Mx

Anonymous said...

When are you gonna be open for business? These look marvelous! There is a local cake decorating class near me and now I'm inspired to take it!

Cakelaw said...

Hi to all

Thank you so much for your kind words of encouragement - I have been blown away by them.

Cakelaw xx

Gretchen Noelle said...

How fun! I wish I could find a cake decorating class here. I sure know I need it!

Ivy said...

Wow, did you make all that. They are beautiful. I wish I could have a class like that.

Dizzee Cake. said...

I adore your sugar flowers! They are gorgeous. I wish I could take a class like that! Congrats on such a great job!!!