1st Wilton Cake Decorating Lesson at Michaels

Yesterday I attended my first in a series of four, 2 hour classes in the Wilton Basics course.  The room was full, and consisted of numerous Mommy/daughter teams.  That made me instantly miss Lily and wish I had signed her up as well.  Although many of the kids were older than Lily, I felt completely certain that she could handle the content of the day. 

In a nutshell, we: received a course book, read through a few pages, watched the instructer make icing and discuss various measuring shortcuts based on her experience, smelled a few flavourings, had a tour of the Wilton Isle to discuss gear and must-have items and lastly, decorated our circle cookies. 

I slacked on the decorating cookies part because I had already spent so much time with that Wilton tip #18 during my Easter cupcake batch.  So, I ducked out a little bit early and bought a few things.  Lily was thrilled when I brought her a bunch of decorated cookies to eat.

Most valuable lessons of the class:

~Never tip your cake out of the pan before allowing it to cool for 10 minutes.  This must be why my baking breaks, it hasn't cooled long enough.
~Leaving your icing to air dry for 10 minutes, then pressing a paper sheet onto it to further smooth the finish. 
~Wilton baking strips that wrap around the cake to create perfectly flat cakes for decorating.  My sister knew this trick from before Wilton figured out how to make a profit off of it.  She uses wet tea towels and pins around the pans.
~If you're not using a kitchenaid stand mixer, DO NOT double the icing batch.  You'll break your machine. 

Here's the impulse shopping of the night.

Butterfly cupcake pics, varieties of non pareils, cupcake cups and meringue powder

Motivated to buy these because they remind me of a sweet internet friend of mine from Austrailia. 
Lissy has the most elegant taste and bakes with the freshest ingredients.

The cookies from class.  BORING.  But I do like the spiral cookie.