Joann Fabric Cake Decorating Classes Age

My Thoughts on the Wilton Cake Decorating Class

by megan on August 13, 2012 62

Wilton Cake Decorating Class

Hey everyone! When I posted on Facebook that I had signed up for the Wilton cake decorating class, I got ton of comments from people who wanted me to let them know what I thought of it. I just finished the 4 week class (taken at my local JoAnn Fabric store), and so I thought I would write a blog post giving you my thoughts. Hopefully this is helpful for anyone who is thinking about signing up for the class in the future.

In short, I loved it. I had a ton of fun, made some friends, and even decorated a pretty good cake, if I do say so myself. 🙂 Will this class immediately turn you into a master cake decorator? No. Especially if you start out as bad as I was! But you will definitely learn a lot, and probably have a lot of fun doing it. I thought I'd break my experience down week by week, including pictures of my decorating experiments. Please don't laugh. *All pictures are from my ipad, so not the best quality!

Week 1: This was basically an introductory week. We learned things like how to bake a great cake, how to fill a piping bag, how to use couplers, and we practiced some basic stars. Our instructor put icing on a cake so quickly and smoothly that I will forever be impressed with her. I managed to come to class completely unprepared (seriously – I showed up without all of the things I was supposed to bring. Except cookies, I remembered the cookies), but thankfully I already knew my way around a piping bag, so I didn't feel too behind. I didn't take any pictures this week, sorry! But here is a picture of a cute little duck that I learned how to make in week 2 🙂

Wilton Cake Decorating Class

Week 2: This is where things got fun. We had to bring an undecorated cake, plus a ton of icing with us to class. We learned a few new techniques, and then set to decorating our cakes. I have to say, I am really bad about getting my icing on smooth. It always looks distinctly homemade. Regardless, at the end, I didn't think my cake was that bad. It was a little lopsided, and very simple, but not too terrible. I wish I had taken a picture of my practice flowers before I started decorating the cake! I was cracking up at myself – they looked like little people with huge bellies! And before you think I'm being too hard on myself, I have to tell you that my classmates agreed. 🙂 Oh well, at least we got a good laugh out of it.

My Week 2 Cake

Week 3: Things got a little more complicated this week. We started learning flowers. The drop flower and rosette are my favorites because they are the easiest. The pompom flower is my second favorite because it's pretty. The shaggy mum is my least favorite because mine looked awful. 🙂 What can I say, I like what I'm good at. All in all, it was a ton of fun to learn these new flowers, and not nearly as difficult as I expected. We also learned how to do swirls on top of a cupcake – finally something where I felt like I knew what I was doing! I'm in love with the idea of making flowers in advance, letting them dry, and transferring them on top of cupcakes. Seriously, how cute is that picture with the blue flower on top of the pink cupcake?? New cupcake idea for my cupcake business right there! 🙂

Wilton Cake Decorating Class

Week 4: Easily the most intimidating week. We learned roses! Roses are hard, guys. My first one didn't look so bad and then they progressively got worse. I think I'm going to practice these, because if you do them right, they look awesome. We also had to bring a cake to class that was already iced. We spent half the class decorating our cakes. I did a little better this week, but once again kept things really simple. I know my limits. 🙂 No fancy flowers, just a few drop flowers and rosettes. Oh, and writing! It wasn't anyone's birthday, but writing is something I'm actually not bad at, so I wrote a nice little happy birthday message to nobody.

Wilton Cake Decorating Class

All in all, I loved this class. It was so nice having a small class (4 people!) because we got plenty of individual help, and we all got to talk and laugh at ourselves and become friends. And actually, we all signed up for the next Wilton class, so that tells you that everyone enjoyed it. I'll leave you with some pictures of the cakes my classmates decorated – they are so good! There are only 2 cakes because the other girl wasn't quite done with her cake yet. Let me know if you have any questions about the class in the comments, and I'll do my best to answer them. 🙂

By the way, I've also posted a brief tutorial on icing cupcakes the easy way. I hope it enhances your kitchen adventures!

P.S. Click here if you'd like to see a lot of great homemade cake & cupcake recipes to use as part of your decorating (and eating!) efforts. Sneak preview: these vanilla chai cupcakes might be our all time favorite 🙂

Wilton Cake Decorating Class