Wilton Wednesday

A few friends and I decided to take a Wilton baking class at our local Hobby Lobby. The first week we practiced some piping techniques on sugar cookies. The second week we had to bake a cake and bring it to class with us to decorate. With all the cooking I do you would think that I had baked a cake before. But no. This was my first cake, so I was pretty nervous about not messing up, especially since I decided to bake it during Taylor's nap on the day of the class. I decided a chocolate cake (I love chocolate) would be a great idea. After much searching I settled on a recipe I found on the Wilton website. The instructor told us we should fill our cake pans between halfway and 3/4 of the way full and that we should probably have batter left over. I bought a really thick cake pan so I decided to use the entire batter (mistake #1). It filled the pan up 3/4 of the way (maybe a little more) so I figured I was good. Well, the cake took an extra 30 minutes to cook because there was so much batter, but it turned out nice and moist. Maybe too moist, because when I transferred it to the cooling rack, while holding Taylor (mistake #2) some of the cake broke off... oops! At this point Taylor was totally eyeing the cake. I turned to walk out of the kitchen and Taylor reached her hand out and grabbed my cake and did this to it....

Yep. That's a big chunk missing. With no time or ingredients left I was forced to take my sad cake with me to class. The instructor said it was ok, we would just fill in the missing spots with icing. Excellent. Here I am hard at work on my cake. Notice the concentration. This is serious business.

And the final product. Yes, I know, It's lop-sided. But this was my first cake to EVER bake. And next time I know not to fill the pan so full! Now all I need to do is practice so I'll be ready to make Taylor's first birthday cake. I think I might buy a smaller pan though so I don't gain 500 lbs in the process.

Paul ready to sink his teeth in!

Next week is cupcake decorating, so stay tuned!