Baking cakes and decorating is something that I’ve learned from friends and watching videos online. I have always wanted to enroll myself to a cake decorating class ever since we moved here in Dubai, but never found time.

I finally made time to enhance my cake decorating skills and enrolled to The Wilton Method of Cake Decorating Course 1 – Building Buttercream Skills. Although I have been baking cakes, decorating them completely with just buttercream scares me. The only cake I decorated not using fondant is my ube cake and I hide my cupcakes buttercream imperfections by adding sprinkles.

 

Inquired about the class schedule at Wilton’s Gold and Diamond Park store and it was perfect for us. My LittleOnes and Daddy C urged me to enroll right that moment with the assurance that they will be ok without me.

For the first session we were asked to bring:

• Wilton Student Course Kit (I got my kit on the first day of class)
• Wilton icing colors (2-3)
• Ready to use icing
• Cupcake box
• Stationery – pen, paper, sticky notes and scissors
• Apron
• Wet wipes
• Storage bags
• 4 cupcakes
• Filling
• Plastic cups

Unfortunately, we started 30 minutes later than our scheduled time because not all of us got our course kit and some were not properly informed on what they need to bring to class. My classmates were stuck at Wilton store waiting for their supplies.

The student course kit included

• 12 rose template stickers
• 9″ spatula, decorator brush
• 1.5 in flower nail
• 12 decorating tips
• 4 standard couplers
• 12 pcs 12 in disposable decorating bags
• 6 pcs parchment triangles
• practice board and sheets
• practice board stand

 

The photo’s above were taken when I practiced what we learned at home, I’ll try and take photos during class next session.

On our first day I learned the following:

• How to make buttercream
  • shortening makes buttercream stable – the answer to my dilemma on why my icing always flops after a few minutes, I make use of only butter for my buttercream.
  • careful when mixing as we don’t want to incorporate too much air on the buttercream
  • add water gradually to get the right consistency you need.
• Add color
  • a little goes a long way
• Prepare piping bag with and without a couplers
  • just cut along the U of the coupler
• Filling cupcakes
• Pipe buttercream with tips #18 and 1M – we were asked to explore other star tips at home.
• 3 essential method
  • Right icing consistency – stiff, medium and thin
  • Bag position – angle and direction (think hours of the clock – 3, 6, 9 and 12)
  • Pressure control – practice a steady and consistent pressure (squeeze) to maintain a uniform look. Practice!
• Anthea, our teacher showed us different bag striping techniques. We didn’t get to do them at class since we didn’t have much time.

Like any other class we were given homework, practice piping techniques from session 1, bake 8″ cake and  make 2 batch of buttercream icing.