Hi everyone,

I love this website! This is my first post, but I have been looking around for a while at everyone's beautiful cakes and getting a lot of good info from the forums. I am a complete amateur cake decorator. I have books and supplies for cake decorating and have just been fooling around on my own for about a year, but now I'm finally going to take the Wilton classes and I'm really excited. My only question is how much time should I plan to spend practicing or preparing from one week to the next? Like if I start the Wilton I class Monday, will I need to devote six or eight hours to cake baking/decorating before the following Monday when the class meets again? Less time? More time? I have a pretty tight schedule and I really want to squeeze this in.

Thanks!

Hi and welcome to CC!

If you're just gearing up for course I, it's the easiest and least time intensive, IMO. This is what we had to do (I took the course in September.):

*You need no cake/icing for the first class.

*You will need to bring an iced, round cake to the second class, plus more icing.

*You will need to bring an iced cake to the third class (although some instructors have you bring iced cupcakes), plus more icing.

*You will need to bring an iced cake to the final class, plus more icing.

I didn't do any practicing in between classes and I think I did alright. I did practice after all four were done as I had so much buttercream left over and I wanted it out of the house!

Have fun!

Thanks for the info! I am also in Florida. I'm in Winter Park and I'm going to take the classes at Michael's. So it sounds like you do all the decorating in class. Is that the way it works? Is that so the teacher can see you doing it and make sure you're not cheating and having someone else do it?

Hi
Congrats on taking the classes. They are fun. When I took them we met on Thursdays- the only outside stuff was making your frosting and baking the cake for that week. I alway baked and froze the cake if it was to far in advance. I would take it out the night before. Let it thaw out. Then put the base coat on. Our instuctor did have one lady that bought her cakes from a bakery with the base coat on them. lol. Great time saver if you can find a bakery to do so.
The other time is just whatever time you want to spend perfecting your new technique, because you always have way more than enough frosting. Hope this helps
Hope you enjoy them

Mara

I honestly don't think the teachers care who does what to the cakes - my teacher hates icing a cake smooth and had her husband do it for her for years.

You do all the dec. in class because most people need to have the instructor there to make sure their tips are at the right angle, the bags not too full, the icing the right consistency, etc. Plus, with the exception of the fondant roses in Level III, we were never in a time crunch - they need something to fill up the hours!

Thanks so much for the info, you guys. I will just bake my cakes in advance, too. Good advice, Mara. I also hate to ice a cake smooth!! I'm just no good. Since I've been on this site, though, I've read a lot about how people crumb ice a cake first and then let it crust over or refrigerate it or whatever and then put another coat of smooth icing on. I had never heard of that before. I've got to try that one because I can never do it crumbless. And there's also that article on here about icing a cake perfectly smooth that I've got to try, too. It's easier to ice a cold cake, too, right? I thought I read that somewhere. I have been doing decorating in buttercream or royal icing but kind of cheating by using store-bought icing in the tub to do the basic icing on the cake. Maybe that's another reason my icing doesn't go on smoothly. It's just not as fluffy as buttercream that you make yourself or that one that Wilton makes a mix for that's vanilla flavored and really fluffy. My poor hubby can't eat all the butter in buttercream icing so that's why I've been using the store bought, but I think I'll switch back to the Wilton mix. Thanks again!

I have been decortating wilton character pans for ten years and have just recently worked with fondant for the first time. i am thinking of taking the courses to get even better and to learn roses and techniques i have never been able to teach myself. my question is...do you have to buy new decorating supplies ofr can you bring what you already own and have been using for years? (tips,bags and such)

Hi..I'm finishing course 1 on Tuesday. I didn't find I needed a lot of time in between the classes at all other than to have my iced cupcakes and cake ready to go for the class...I'm baking my final cake Tomorrow and will ice it tomorrow night for Tuesday just to have it done and out of the way. I may even wait till Tuesday. You aren't expected to do any of the decorating at home. The only thing I was told to have was the proper consistancy icings ready to go and I have also been recycling the icings I've made so for example..only need to make a batch of thick for this tuesday. I already have a batch of thin and med made from earlier classes. One suggestion I would make would be to not color huge amounts of icing because you wind up not using very much of them for classes...I have a huge batch of pink made and regret coloring it all now because it isn't exactly the color I would rush to use all the time LOL
I play around usually once I finish class with trying to practice some of the stuff we learned that week but most of it came so easy I just feel comfortable doing it.
It sounds like the icing you're using is the culprit with having trouble smoothing...the wilton recipe smoothes well without much effort. Getting a smooth finish is one of the first things they'll show you in class...Personally I don't like the taste of it so cheated and used a different crusting buttercream recipe for class which seamed to work fine for both med. and thin consistency but will use the wilton recipe for the thick to learn the roses tues..then once I can get the hang of them will try to find a better tasting icing that works.

Have fun with the class...I am almost done and can't wait to take the next course and learn royal and all the other flowers.

I don't make my students bring a cake or cupcakes on the third night of class. I have found over the years that the time is much better spent learning the rose and perfecting the shell, two techniques that give Course I students the most trouble in the beginning.

If you don't have time for baking, you can always do dummy cakes (styrofoam) and buy a tub of ready-made Wilton decorators icing. Several of my students have opted for these time-savers.

~ Sherri

Sorry accidently clicked for quote.

You really won't need any outside time practicing for class, unless you want to do it.

Just make sure to save your frosting from week to week. You will never use all that the class requires you to bring.

I would suggest that you use the Wilton recipie for you frosting. It is very difficult as a beginner to get canned frosting smooth. Plus it does not hold up well, all of the hard work that you do just slowly melts away.

Good luck and enjoy the class.

I have bought a few things and I love them and find them a huge help..I bought the huge icing tip for icing the cake and bought the wilton cake leveler ( i bought the cheap one and it works great for me). I also bought the inexpensive turntable. My instructor went thru a list of suggested items that would be helpful and some that she felt weren't needed but nice to have..I'm sure yours will also.

I do have a question for the instructors here? Is the flower lifter worth the couple of bux it costs..I am thinking of buying it but is it something I really will find handy? Money is tight so I try to avoid buying even the very inexpensive items unless they will really come in handy over time

I found as a Wilton teacher that students that did practice the techniques learned in class were a little more sucessful than those that didn't.

but, it's really an individual thing.

As a teacher I always understood that people had REAL lives and jobs, so I would allow them to bring cake circles to class and use those as a cake! but they had to bring in a cake to the last class for "graduation night"..

I also allowed my students to bring in a Sara Lee cake, whatever helped them along with their time management, what was important to me was that they came to class night and learn the new technique!

By the way..was I the ONLY teacher that gave out homework the first night? lol

I always taught my students how to make paper bags and their homework was to make...100 of them!

believe me...you CAN use them up in a hurry..

( Yes, Yes, I know all about disposable bags, but this way....it was less mess to take home! all they had to do was scrape the icing out of the paper bags into their containers and trow it away!)

Cutecookie -

I'm not an instructor (just finished Course III), but I'll tell you what I think about the flower lifter. It's convenient, but not necessary. You can always use your neighbor's during class, assuming a good rapport. If you're somoene who likes flowers or you think you'll be making a lot of cakes with roses, go ahead and buy it. If you don't, save your money. Our instructor told us scissors with thin blades would do the same. And some day, if someone orders a cake with a ton of roses, tack on the few bucks as part of the cost.

Cheeers!

I am a Wilton instructor and I am surprised to see that most wrote to say that you didn't have to do things at home whle taking the course! One of the first things they note in the Course I book is practice, practice, practice. We all know as cake decorators that you get better the more you do it. I have found that students get very upset when they can't seem to "master" a technique" during class. And it is hard to spend much one- on-one time with those who need more help especially when there is a large class. Although I don't require them to do "homework" (except for making parchment bags after the first class), I do encourage them to practice by making cakes for any reason for family, friends or work. I don't make them bake a cake for the lessons 2,3 & 4 but I do require it twice and the other lesson I provide them with small character cakes or cookies to practice their star tipping technique which doesn't take up too much time and if they have nothing to do with a cake, they aren't wasting one. BUT I do think anyone taking the class should practice outside of the classroom to prevent them being frustrated when they aren't able decorate as well as they could with practice.
OK..all done!

Darstus..you make a great point. I do practice some when I'm home with the practice boards and used what I learned as an excuse this week to make a cake for my dd who was sick..I made a 1 layer 6" cake so I wouldn't wind up with tons left over. I actually like to try out the stuff for the upcoming lesson to see if I can figure out how to do the techniques before getting to class...I feel like it gives me a head start then once there i can see if I was missing a step or if there's an easier way. I am just finishing course 1 but have been trying some of the course 2 stuff on my own so can't wait to take the class to learn these things.
Ironically my instructor didn't show us to make the parchment piping bags...she doesn't like using them so skipped it...and she only had us bring cupcakes for week 3 and now a fully iced cake for week 4..no cake at all for weeks 1 and 2

The bottom line is, you get out of it what you put into it.

Diva, I make my students make a ton of parchment bags too.

I also make my students bring their icing bagged every week with coupler and tips on every bag. Colored, thinned, or stiffened, they have to be ready to go.

Personally, I like the flower lifter only because it's offset. Scissors definitely do the trick but having an offset, lightweight plastic rose lifter was worth the extra couple of bucks for me.

~ Sherri

Cake pro,

I agree...you get out of it what you put into it. If I see that a student is not particularly interested or motivated and I can't get "through" I know that student will NOT be particularly sucessful.

I took the Wilton 1 course about 3 times because I just couldn't get myself wrapped around that Wilton Rose..lol

so for many,many years I did cakes that did NOT require that rose!

When I became a teacher I had to "confess" to my students my dilema, we learned together..lol

Now, my roses are great!..and all it took was PRACTICE, PRACTICE and more PRACTICE!

The rose is the big reason I wanted to take the course. My hubby is the type who can look at something and figure it out..I am a visual person and while I was able to figure out most of the course 1 stuff just reading the book I haven't figured out the roses yet. Same with the rose buds from course 2. I recieved all the course books before starting the course so have tried several of the lessons on my own. I know myself...I will obsess until I figure out the bc rose LOL

I feel like I should clarify - I'm not boasting about not doing anything at home. I know I should have, I just couldn't find/make the time. (I've got a 2 year old and am pregnant and was not feeling good for 99% of Levels I and II.) Would I have gotten more out of it/better skills had I practiced? Probably. But, I'm doing this not to make fantastic cakes that rival Colette Peters, but rather to be able to make my Clifford-crazed toddler a cute cake that tastes better than those from the grocery store. I think I've learned enough to be able to do that and a bit more.

Being a former teacher, though, I can understand how the comments about not doing much at home rubbed a bit wrongly. It is true, the effort you put in determines the outcome.