Many of us signed up for the series of classes for this moment: the day we learn to work with fondant frosting for the cakes. It's an exciting session.
New classroom!
I should back up and explain that the teachers, with all their integrity and love of the craft, insist on teaching the first three courses as a chronological series. You must take the basic and intermediate classes before you get to learn the advanced techniques of fondant.
"Using frosting is a basic skill that all bakers should know," explains Lori Tamashiro.
"That's right," adds co-teacher Lani Sonan. "Some top bakers on those Food Network challenges don't know how to ice. And I've seen some of them fail for their lack of icing skills. We want our students to be prepared."
I admit, I begrudgingly signed up for the first two classes, since it was a prerequisite for this course. I'm a busy mom and I like to be efficient with my time. I didn't want to learn stuff that I thought was less interesting and possibly self-explanatory. Frosting, meet piping bag. Hold, squeeze. What more?
But I was wrong. The icing classes were charming and way more fun that I anticipated, and it wasn't a misuse of my time. I got to bond with my friend Joy in a weekly activity, and get to know a bunch of other new friends. You know, we ain't talking only about cakes in there for two and a half hours. Sometimes ribald jokes and men make the list of acceptable conversation.
Me and Joy Kamae Shimizu
So here we are in advanced class, and in this course we'll work with fondant and gumpaste, because those two trendy elements go hand in hand for making those upscale cakes you often seen at weddings and food channel bake-offs. They both look like Play-Doh, except they're edible. Fondant tastes like marshmallow, but gumpaste tastes like Big Red. I don't advise eating gumpaste.
FONDANT FOR DUMMIES
I have been quite open about being a non-baker before this. I had no idea what fondant really was. Assuming you're at ground zero like I was, I'll tell you the main points of what I just learned.
1) Fondant and gumpaste is made in a factory, and you buy it. You do not make it. I didn't know that. It is pricey. The small bucket Cake Creations uses costs $80. Therefore, it pained me to feed my cake to my family and see my mom and husband peel off the fondant and discard it as being "too sweet." Eh! That was super expensive!
Gumpaste
2) Fondant and gumpaste are hard. Gumpaste is harder than fondant. You have to knead both to soften them enough to work with. You then get your rolling pin and roll it out. Both dry extremely fast and get crackly, so you have to work with it immediately.
3) Work fast! Fondant is that smooth frosting that drapes over the cake. Immediately after rolling it out, cover the cake with it. Do not get distracted by a phone call or a bathroom break. It will dry, crack at the edges instead of shaping around the cake, and you will have to start over. You can also make decorations out of fondant.
4) If you want to pre-make decorations out of gumpaste, you should let it dry rock-hard in a cool place, for a week or two. (Time estimates are specific to Hawaii humidity.) We learned to make a couple different kinds of bows (like gift wrapping). The teachers are storing our gumpaste bows until the next class, when they should be dry.
My gumpaste bow pieces
This is why you see those TV bakers decorate the cake and then whip out pre-made flowers and such. Those decorations have been dried for weeks prior.
5) Always undercoat the cake with buttercream because other frostings are too soft and watery. The fondant will absorb the water and get tacky.
Very thin coating
6) If you frost with fondant the night before the event, DO NOT refrigerate the cake. Because we're in Hawaii, the temperature change from cold refrigerator to humid weather will make the fondant sweaty, tacky, and slippery. With that in mind, make sure all the elements in your cake are not going to spoil sitting on the counter overnight. IE, don't use a whipped cream filling.
Prepare to get dirty!
Mine
We all got a five inch, two-layered cake to fool around with, and cookie cutters and crimpers to make fun shapes. We learned to roll ribbon roses, which is what I did for my cake. I was so impressed with everyone's creativity. Fondant makes it pretty easy to look artistic!
Joy's
Another student's cake who wants to remain anonymous
Unfinished cake, but I was leaving so I just photographed what she had
This final class of the course let us put all our skills to the test by designing a cake in whatever way we wanted. The teachers gave us a quarter sheet of chocolate cake and let us do whatever we wanted to it. It was a good way to give us an idea of how long it really takes to just ice the cake. It took us all at least two and a half hours to finish.
We used Pastry Pride whipped creme to frost the cake, then most of us used buttercream to ice. Buttercream pipes out smoother. I chose to practice Olivia's birthday cake (yet another design possibility), while most of the students practiced what we learned the previous class on Asian themes.
Sylvie's cake for her husband
Joy's Zen theme- bamboo and brook
Sam
Lori also taught us how to make 3D figures out of frosting. You use straw and/or cardboard as the foundation to give it shape, and just pipe icing on it till you get the desired shape. Here, Lori piped a dolphin jumping out of the cake.
Dolphin out of frosting
This class concludes the lessons on working with icing. Next class we start working with fondant. I'm glad I learned this, because it's a basic skill.
Olivia loved her cake. So did everyone else in the house, and some neighbors!
Asian-themed cakes, like for yakudoshi, are one of Cake Creations' biggest sellers. Lori Tamashiro decided to teach us, step by step, how to make her design. It's something she's created over the years after getting repeated requests and then feedback about what people like. She included a lot of Japanese elements in this.
Mine
To make it, she taught us how to pipe bamboo and a flying crane.
My practice bamboo
My sorry looking crane
My crane definitely needs work. Then, we followed her step by step as she piped and airbrushed the quarter sheet cake.
Lastly, we got to work with a new frosting - whipped cream - to see what it's like to use that kind of product. We got to design our own 5 inch yellow cakes to take home. Most people did a variant of the Asian theme she just taught us, but I forgot that I'm a bit of a non-conformist, and I did Hello Kitty. Taking this class brings back memories of how I was in grade school.
Using an illustration of Hello Kitty, I freehanded the outline in the cake using a little paint brush, and then piped the frosting in. Then I flattened it out and scraped off half the frosting. Then I added the detail.
Um, I forgot to color my frosting before piping it. Reluctantly, I airbrushed part of it, which I found difficult because the air blast started blowing away my frosting (the nose and some letters) when I got too close. If I held the airbrush further away, then it sprayed too many other things on the cake.
OK, live and learn. But, I like the basic design. Extremely girly, but I like it.
Ocean-themed cakes are one of the signature items of Cake Creations, so in this class, we learned to pipe, airbrush, and decorate that. We got cake cardboards to practice on. We iced that and then decorated it.
First, Lori gave a demo of how she does it. I felt like I was watching Bob Ross' PBS show, The Joy of Painting. When I see him do it, it all looks easy and possible. Then I try and it's like, what the heck? Hence, Lori talked while she decorated, making it look so easy.
My doodlings
Stuff placed in no particular order while I fooled with the technique
Molds for gumpaste shapes
She talked about how to sketch out the canvas, how to draw the big items in first and let the little things fall into place around it, and then how to pipe all the figures in. We got a quick intro to gumpaste molds to add texture. We saw how to airbrush it.
In my hands, the piping bag, paintbrush, and airbrush gun were unwieldy and clumsy. Still, it was interesting to try. If nothing else it gives you real appreciation for how difficult the craft really is!
BOILED ICING
Lori taught us how to make boiled icing, which tastes like marshmallow and is much trickier to make than the buttercream we've been using for weeks.
Timing is everything with boiled icing
Lasts only a day
Make meringue cookies with leftover boiled icing
Now THIS is a bowl! (12 qts)
COOKIES
This is such a dangerous hobby for my wasitline. I spend way more time in bakeries now than ever before. I now find myself browsing in the bakery aisle, or going to different bakeries, to just look at other people's work. I go to bakeries and I buy treats to eat and analyze, to study the texture and see what I should strive for.
I see things differently now that my relationship to baking has changed from passive to dynamic. I'm a novice, I readily admit. But it sure keeps life fun and fresh to try new skills.
On my own, I practiced making sugar cookies and icing them. I bought more cookie cutters (in addition to my hand me downs from Mom), and played around one week.
My friend Jason's birthday
I am so lucky my housemate has a sweet tooth. The most massive sweet tooth I've ever seen, actually. How he stays so thin is amazing.
Most of all, I loved giving Olivia her custom cookie. She was so happy with it. To see the smile on her face when I presented it to her was even better than the reward of a sugary snack!
Lei making and airbrushing started off the first class of this Intermediate series. We got to work with a variety of airbrushes, from a cheap starter one ($100) to the $800 professional grade one that the cake gals use.
Professinal airbrush
It was SO MUCH FUN. I had no idea airbrushing was that addictive. I thought it was easy, and it made coloring the cake easier. It almost makes me understand why people like tagging, though I must clarify that I cannot condone illegal graffiit.
Lori
How to hold it
Practice fine and thick lines
My graffiti
Joy
If I buy an airbrush, you can bet every other kind of food that can be colored, will. Pink potatoes, blue butter, red pancakes...
We also learned how to make six different kinds of lei: plumeria, carnation (which to me looks like torch ginger), ilima (with maile and pikake), Micronesian ginger, orchid, rosebud.
PlumeriaCarnation
Ilima, with maile and pikake
Ginger and rosebud
Rosebud
I was tired. That's a lot of flowers. We all got tired forearms. It gets tiring to keep squeezing the bag after a while. My favorite is the rosebud, which of course will be prettier when I really do it because I'll color it for the cake. Which one do you think I should use for Olivia's birthday cake?
Diane Ako is a mother and wife. She spent 16
years in television
news. She freelances in writing, video, and consulting. She is currently reinventing herself!
