Hello!
Baking is one of my many passions in life. I enjoy when others delight in my creations, be it a gourmet dinner or delicious dessert. I've been interested in learning how to prepare and decorate elegant Wedding Cakes. Anyone knows of an affordable course I can take in NYC? I've looked into several institutes, but I want to keep it simple. Just wedding cakes.
Help...please?

By Ladycake (Ladycake) on Friday, May 16, 2003 - 06:38 pm: Edit

Godiva..... I've learned more by doing it than I ever did in any course, including the culinary academy. Get yourself some tips (buy the big set and lots of other ones too), a good heavy duty turntable, and a few books. In the evenings just sit around and make flowers. Fiddle around with pastillage, chocolate, and fondant. If you can follow directions well, you can teach yourself out of the books (there are a lot of great ones out there).

Level off the cake before you frost. Decorate and practice with tiers and all. There are good directions in books now, be brave!

After you decorate a cake, scrape off the icing, freeze and reuse the cakes or your children will start to cry when you bring one to the table - even too much cake can get old. Have fun with it and teach yourself. When you get stuck, come back and we'll give you a few suggestions.

Wilton and Ateco have good tip sets. I like the canvas bags but that is debatable (I've heard that discussed here.) I use powdered color but paste is okay too. Stay away from the liquid as it waters down your frosting.

Whaddaya say, how adventuresome are you?

By Godiva (Godiva) on Monday, May 19, 2003 - 03:20 pm: Edit

Well many thanks for your advice!!!
I've been to Barnes n' Noble this past weekend looking for some books, but none met my expectations...Any one in particular you could recommend??...
I definitely plan to start on my own! Once I get back from my trip I'll be tripping on icing...Good therapy.

By Dolphinwaves (Dolphinwaves) on Monday, May 19, 2003 - 04:57 pm: Edit

Some specialty bakery supply stores have dummy cakes and dummy icing. This way you don't have all the icing and cake around to make a mess.

By Ladycake (Ladycake) on Monday, May 19, 2003 - 06:29 pm: Edit

Dummy cakes are fine for practicing the vertical decorations but you also need to work with the real thing in order to get the weight and instability of real cakes under control. I'll get back to you with a few books. One I use is Rose Levy Berenbaum's "Cakes"

By Ladycake (Ladycake) on Friday, May 30, 2003 - 11:40 am: Edit

Godiva,
Have you checked out pastrywhiz.com ? It is an interesting site.

By Godiva (Godiva) on Monday, June 16, 2003 - 04:34 pm: Edit

I'm back! Went to Hawaii for a week and had a great time...invigorated and energized, determined to find someone to teach me and I did...I begin the 29th of July and I'm looking forward to it...I had already gotten the "Cake Bible" from Rose Levy...Excellent book! I'm loading on some supplies, such as bags and tips, and now I've got to pick up some baking pans...Really excited about it ;-)
My husband want's to get me my first ever mixer, my preference a KitchenAid...Thing is I can't decide whether to get the 5 or 6 quart, given that I plan to specialize in wedding cakes...What do you recommend??

By Ladycake (Ladycake) on Tuesday, June 17, 2003 - 10:22 am: Edit

The bigger the better. I have a 5 quart at home and I always am overfilling it. At work I have a "little" 20 quart and a large mixer with two bowls that I can change out with an adapter. I love it, something for all occasions!

Seriously, the bigger one would probably serve you better. Good luck! Welcome to the world of crazy people :>)