so there's this cooking school up here that tom and i go to quite a lot and i decided to take my first class alone this month! for my birthday, my friend alli, gave me a cake decorating set with frosting and everything. and since i don't really know how to decorate with all those tips, i took a class! we only used one tip but i learned tons about how to use it as well as frosting in general. we parcticed all our techniques with mashed potatoes first (since we could just scoop up our designs and reuse the potatoes as much as we wanted). we practiced lines, shells, rosettes, stars and the "basketweave" pattern. mostly the technique comes from filling the pastry bag only about 1/2 full, palming/squeezing the bag with your dominant hand while directing with the non dominant, getting the tip really close to the surface and stopping the squeeze before lifting the bag to start a new design. we also learned how to make swiss buttercream frosting which is pretty labor intensive; heating egg white and sugar in a double boiler (but not cooking them), making a merenge, softening and whipping butter and then mixing with the merenge. and then you color and go! i have recipes for french, swiss and italian buttercream frostings but you can just let me know if you want one of them. i found out that apparently my favorite frosting isn't buttercream though (like i always thought it was), it's creamcheese frosting! silly me. one other really helpful tip i learned was the "crumb layer". take some frosting (uncolorred is fine) and put in a separate bowl before using it to thinly frost your whole cake. cover everything! then put it in the fridge for 8-10min and when you take it out you can frost away without ripping up bits of cake and getting your frosting all messy and ugly with crumbs. it's the barrier between your fantastick frosting work and the crumbly cake. let's see. also, it you brush both sides of your cake with sugar water when it comes out of the oven it supposedly keeps the cake from drying out while it cools. and for a really smooth frosting finish after you've finished your base frosting (without the fancy designs) put it in the fridge again. then take it out after an hour or so and brush quickly and lightly with boiling water the just barely melt the outer bit of frosting for a really sleek smooth look. oh, and apparently those little spinney lasy susan cake turner things are really helpful for decorating things too. and that's cake decorating 101!
so there's this cooking school up here that tom and i go to quite a lot and i decided to take my first class alone this month! for my birthday, my friend alli, gave me a cake decorating set with frosting and everything. and since i don't really know how to decorate with all those tips, i took a class! we only used one tip but i learned tons about how to use it as well as frosting in general. we parcticed all our techniques with mashed potatoes first (since we could just scoop up our designs and reuse the potatoes as much as we wanted). we practiced lines, shells, rosettes, stars and the "basketweave" pattern. mostly the technique comes from filling the pastry bag only about 1/2 full, palming/squeezing the bag with your dominant hand while directing with the non dominant, getting the tip really close to the surface and stopping the squeeze before lifting the bag to start a new design. we also learned how to make swiss buttercream frosting which is pretty labor intensive; heating egg white and sugar in a double boiler (but not cooking them), making a merenge, softening and whipping butter and then mixing with the merenge. and then you color and go! i have recipes for french, swiss and italian buttercream frostings but you can just let me know if you want one of them. i found out that apparently my favorite frosting isn't buttercream though (like i always thought it was), it's creamcheese frosting! silly me. one other really helpful tip i learned was the "crumb layer". take some frosting (uncolorred is fine) and put in a separate bowl before using it to thinly frost your whole cake. cover everything! then put it in the fridge for 8-10min and when you take it out you can frost away without ripping up bits of cake and getting your frosting all messy and ugly with crumbs. it's the barrier between your fantastick frosting work and the crumbly cake. let's see. also, it you brush both sides of your cake with sugar water when it comes out of the oven it supposedly keeps the cake from drying out while it cools. and for a really smooth frosting finish after you've finished your base frosting (without the fancy designs) put it in the fridge again. then take it out after an hour or so and brush quickly and lightly with boiling water the just barely melt the outer bit of frosting for a really sleek smooth look. oh, and apparently those little spinney lasy susan cake turner things are really helpful for decorating things too. and that's cake decorating 101! 
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