Lesson 1 teaches about choosing the right pan, preparing cake pans, mixing batter, filling the pans, testing for doneness, removing the cakes, making icing, preparing the bags with couplers, leveling the cakes, icing the cake, and decorating tips.
I made the icing according to the recipe in the book and decided to use it for practicing since I don't really care for the taste or texture. I was pretty familiar with preparing my bag with the tip and coupler as I learned it from the class last year. My practice with using the star tip went well.
My final product for this lesson: The Teddy Bear Cake
Materials Used:
Wilton's teddy bear pan
Star Tip 18
Candy eyes (found at Wal-Mart)
Decorating candy string for the mouth and to outline the feet (found at Wal-Mart)
Chocolate chip morsels for the nose, mouth, and nails
Homemade Cream Cheese icing
Wilton brown, blue, and red food coloring paste
Lessons Learned
Cream cheese icing gets soft really quickly and makes it difficult to pipe designs. I had to keep refrigerating the icing to harden it up so the bear took quite a while to decorate.
Use dark cocoa powder in icing to help cut down on needing to use so much food coloring.
Make sure to release bag before lifting tip. This helps with getting a better shape for the stars.
