Wilton Food Writers Freebie

We are going to give away one set of these awesome 

Wilton Food Writers 

to one of our followers for this blog!  

These are really nice to have for decorating cakes, cupcakes, cookies, and/or anything edible!!!  

In this set comes 5 colors: blue, green, red, brown, and black.

 The fine tip helps for awesome detail work!

How to enter:

1) Sign up to follow us (in a link to the left that says "Follow by Email") with a correct email so I can get information to and from the winner.  

2) Also leave a comment below stating your favorite cake from our sight, if this is your first visit, please look around!

Drawing will be held on 
Saturday, November 15th. 
Winner will be notified by email provided!  

Thanks so much for stopping by!!
Margie and Joy Cain

Wilton Classes at Hobby Lobby

Wilton Classes for the 

Hobby Lobby in Bettendorf 

start soon!! 

Hobby Lobby has a great price of $22.50, 

which is 50% off Wilton's regular price of $45.00

for the month of November 2014.  

You get 8 hours of instruction and a course book

 (a $5 value, given on the first night of class).

Each course meets 4 different nights 

for 2 hours each night. 

Do you know someone who loves to bake? watch cake shows? and/or cupcake wars on TV? 

Wilton Classes make great Christmas presents!!  

Course 1 - Building Buttercream Skills

Come and learn about cupcakes, cakes, cookies 

and how to decorate these great items with buttercream!  

We learn how to bake, frost and decorate a cake to look professional, 

many buttercream flowers (including the Wilton ribbon rose), 

and fun techniques to make cake decorating fun and easy! 

Mondays, November 10, 17, 24, and December 1 from 6 - 8 pm

Course 3 - Fondant and Gumpaste

Come and learn how to cover a cake in fondant and

 make beautiful gumpaste flowers to decorate cakes!

Wilton has designed easy techniques that anyone can learn to make 

unbelievable showstopping gumpaste flowers. 

Come join the fun and see!

Tuesdays, November 11, 18, 25, and December 2 from 6 - 8 pm

Sign up at a your Bettendorf Hobby Lobby today!

Hope to see you soon!!!

(For those waiting for Course 4 - it will be available in January!) 

Panther Birthday Cake

My favorite son-in-law, Garrett, (I can say that right now since he is the only one! lol) always asks for 'easy' cakes for his birthday - usually german chocolate, etc...  and never really a cake I can decorate.  So, this year, I didn't ask him...  my daughter, Becca (his wife), and I planned to make his TWO favorite cakes - a german chocolate and a red velvet with an all butter mock whipped cream frosting and I decorated one of them with a favorite of his - a panther!  When he was in college, his society had the panther as their mascot. Although I couldn't find the same simple design he had picked for a project Becca is doing, I did find a harder one of course - although it was easier than most I had seen online.

This mock whipped cream is a harder frosting to frost and decorate with, because it is made with all butter and melts easily and also does not dry to touch (noncrusting), so it never dries to be able to get it smoother with wax paper and a fondant smoother. I had a little more problems frosting that usual, but the good thing is, his family's joke is a messy frosting means a good cake - which actually can many times be true!!  A cake that is moist and easily falls apart when frosting it, is usually the best cake!  (So don't look at the frost job!!  I was just keeping with family tradition - that's my story and I'm sticking to it!!!)

The recipe is in an early post - Red Velvet Cake with Mock Whipped Cream Frosting - Just substitute butter for shortening for a buttery flavor.

Panther Cake

The panther was put on using piping gel on wax paper to transfer the basic shape to the cake.

 Then a simple outline in orange and star-tipped in black made for a mostly easy cake. 

The whiskers gave me a bit of a hard time too, basically because I forgot to keep some white frosting and had to use canned frosting for those.  Even though there were a few 'mess-ups'... the cakes tasted great and that is what is important anyway!!  

Happy Birthday Garrett!!