May 13th, 2009

Today I went to Dianes House to decorate the two cakes that we baked. This time it was my turn to do all the work. So to start I got the mixer out to make the icing. In the bowl I put a two pound bag of powdered sugar, two cups of crisco, four tablespoons of milk, one teaspoon of butter extract, and one tablespoon of vanilla flavoring. These are the ingredients for buttercream icing. I made two batches of this because of the size of the cake. After the icing was mixed I got the eight inch cake out (it had cooled over night) and began to spread the icing around the sides of the cake and then to the top. Once the icing was leveled out and smoothed out I inserted the dhow rods to hold the six inch cake on top of it. Before placing the small cake on top of the large one I had to get the icing smoothed out on it. After this I placed the small cake on top of the large one and got ready to add the decorations.

To prepare for the decorations I had to take some of the white buttercream icing and add coloring to it. This time I made green, pink, and orange. After they were mixed completely, I put the colored icing into bags and placed the decorating tips on the end of the bag. I started with the green and put a jagged border onto the large cake and the small cake. Next, I got the orange icing and started with the design and later came in with the pink. Once this was finished I put the cake in the freezer so the icing would harder, this would allow me to put the plastic wrap onto the cake with out it messing up.

After all was finish and the cake was beautiful I loaded it up and took it to my moms house and placed it in her freezer (simply because mine was full lol).

If you would like to see a picture of the cake look on my portfolio on the left side of the screen and click on final Cake pictures.

May 12th, 2009

Today I went to the grocery store and bought cake mix, confectioners sugar, and crisco. I went to my mentors house to bake the cakes. I mixed all the ingredients together with the cake mix and put them into two pans (8in pan and a 6in pan). After the cakes had finished baking they were not cooling fast enough so we made plans to finish the cakes the next day.

Thursday, Aril 23, 2009

On Thursday I went to Dianes house to decorate my two layer cake. We started with a base layer and put a coat of white icing. To do this the we placed the 8 inch cake on a platter that rotates making it easier to decorate. Then, I put the smaller cake (6 inches) on to a different platter and put its white coat on it. Once we had this completed we placed the dow rods into the center of the 8 inch cake so that the 6 inch cake would not sink down in to the other cake.

I placed the small cake on top of the other one and started to mix the colored icing to do the decorations. The way you do this is take the white icing and add whatever color you want to it and then mix it until there are no more dark lines of coloring in the icing.

After the icing is mixed you place it into the bags so that you can decorate the cake. I made pink and purple icing for this cake. I put a border around the bottom of each cake and then made circles all over it, on the sides and top of the cake.

It took a while to complete this cake because the icing had to harden before the decorations could be finished. Once it was completed we placed the cake on a piece of cardboard and then loosly covered it with plastic wrap. And we were finished for the day!

April 22, 2009

On april 22 I went grocery shopping for the materials that are needed to complete a two layer cake. This time we decided to use cake mix instead of making it from scratch. So I bought two boxes of yellow cake mix, a bottle of vegetable oil, and a dozen eggs.

We mixed the cake mix and then put both cakes in the oven (an 8 inch and a 6 inch).

After the cakes finished I went home, because we had planned to put the icing on the cake the next day so that we could be sure the cake was cooled enough.

April 12, 2009

On Easter Sunday I made a cake to take to our church dinner. I dont have any pictures of this because I did it at my house instead of with my mentor. It was a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. I did try making some different flowers, they didn't turn out as good as the ones I made with Diane but it was worth a try. I used yellow and blue again for the icing, being that it was easter. This is all that I have done recently but in the next two weeks we are going to make a couple more cakes, so I'll will be able to add more pictures.

I will also be bringing the cakes to school for everyone to try!

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

Today I learned how to make buttercream icing. I used two pounds of powdered sugar, two cups of Crisco, and some water (not sure of exact amount). We put it all in a bowl and let it mix for about five minutes and then put the base layer on the cake. She taught me a really neat trick of how to make the icing smooth with not lumps or bumps in it. After you have the cake covered with icing, you take the knife and wet it with warm water and go over the cake and smooth it out. That was amazing to me how easy it was to smooth it out. I had no clue how I was going to get it to look good, but we did. After we got this layer on we started with the decorations. We just got some of the white icing out into two different bowls and adding coloring to them. And, when you add the color you only have to put a pinch or your icing will end up being really dark.

After we got all of this mixed up, we put it in bags to do the decorating. She showed me how to hold it to make it stick to the cake better. I put a bottom border and a top one then we worked on some flowers. I made probably twenty flowers before I figured out how to do it right. But, eventually I got eight flowers that look good and that was the finishing touches of the cake.

Hopefully sometime in the next couple weeks I will get to do another one.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

I have been busy with so much stuff that I haven't been keeping up on here. So, in the past week I completed my paper and made a cake. Our church was having a dinner for a particular family who was leaving and my mentor and I made a simple cake to take to them. We made the cake Saturday evening and took it church on sunday morning. It was a two layer cake with chocolate icing, nothing fancy just simple.

I havent had much time to spend with her, she has finished two cakes that I did not get to help her on and they were wonderful. She made a piano cake and a small wedding cake. We are trying to find a time make a sample cake of what I could use for my final product. We will probably get together this weekend to work on another project.

February 9, 2009

Today I worked on scanning my papers so that I could post them on my web site but for some reason you cant read them. I dont know what we did wrong but it didnt work out to well. I was really looking forward to getting them posted so that other people could read them and see what I was planning on doing. The papers include my letter of intent, my interview with my mentor, and all the permission forms that had to be filled out.

Hopefully by tomorrow we will get it figured out and my papers will be posted to my website!
:)

Also I have turned my research paper into my advisor and she has reviewed it and made some suggestions as to what would make it better. I will be working on it tonight and hopefully turning another copy into her tomorrow. After that I should be almost finished and will be able to turn it in to my teacher.
I cant wait until I have finished it completely so that I have the assurance that I am done.

February 3rd, 2009

I have completed over half of my research paper and have been spending some time with my mentor watching her bake cakes. She hasnt had any wedding cakes lately but she had done plenty of birthday cakes. Even though the decorations are not as elaborate, its good for me to watch the way everything is prepared.

So far with writing the paper I have read through a lot of recipes and seen the different ways to make icing. There are lots of different recipes so I guess that most people make theirs just off of what they like best.

I will keep working hard to learn more!

January 27, 2009

This week I have been working on my research paper. It took me a little while to get started but I think I am going to be able to reach the dead line. This past weekend I talked with my mentor and completed the interview questions that i wrote. We have spoke several times on trying to decide which type wedding cake will be best for my project.
I am probably just going to do a basic wedding cake (maybe two layers) but the twist will be the designs of the decoration but you will just have to wait to see what they are going to be.

January 14, 2009

The past two days we have been working on forms and letters for the senoir project. I have completed my letter of intent for my mentor and am waiting on approval to turn it in . I also completed the "Graduation project proposal approval form" and am waiting to have it put on my web page!

I am very excited about learning how to bake a wedding and then doing all of the decorations. I know that this is a very time consuming project but I am willing to take the time to learn something new.

I have planned to meet with my mentor this sunday (January 18th, 2009) to discuss what we will be doing. I will post back once I have completed another step of this process!

January 6th, 2009

The idea that I have for my senoir project is cake baking and decorating. I want to learn to bake cakes and how many different ways to decorate them. I do have a person that has said she would be my mentor, her name is Diane Kaylor (she goes to my church).
I know that it would be hard to write a paper on just caking backing, so I thought that maybe I could do it on the history of baking and how it has advanced.