On April 7th, 2010 I started with the Wilton cake decorating classes to prepare for building and designing my own wedding cake. My classes are at the ABC Cake Decorating Supply store in Phoenix.

Here are some basics I would like to write down for anybody who wants to learn from what I’ve learned. The following is a baseline for Cake making, Icing, and other techniques.

The basics to making a cake are. Preheat the oven to 335. Not 350 degrees.

Use Wilton Cake Release and coat pans very well. The pans I use are the Wilton Excelle Elite, and I love my set. They are possibly the best pans I have. When I coat the pans, I use a silicon brush that you can get for BBQ. I coat the pans with butter and flour. You can also use preset products like PAM for baking or Wilton Cake Release.

Since I have a KitchenAid Professional 600 Series Stand Mixer, I put the ingredients in there to mix. I’ll normally use a box of Pillsbury or Betty Crocker cake mix. I’ll have a matching flavor of pudding, then I’ll put the cake mix and the pudding mix into the bowl. 3 eggs. 1/3 cup of vegetable oil. You can use a different type of oil, but the other oils have a flavor that tint the flavor of the cake. Instead of the 1 cup of water, use a cup of milk instead. Mix it up with the whisk attachment. This is also called a wire whip attachment. After 1 minute, stop the mixer and use a spatula to push the sides down and bring the bottom up in case there is any powder mix there. Mix for another minute and then pour into the pans.

While the cake is baking, wash the bowl out well. We’ll work on making the icing. I make my icing from scratch normally because I can control the texture and the amount.

Put 1 cup Hi-Ratio Shortening into the mixing bowl with 1lbs of confectioners sugar. 1 teaspoon of flavoring, an extract of sorts. If I’m going for a pure white color icing, use the Wilton No-Color Butter , Almond, or Vanilla. Then 2 tablespoons of water and 1 tablespoon of Meringue Powder. Using the paddle attachment, mix this up.

This recipe is great and if you want to double it, just simply double all ingredients. My bags of sugar come in 2lbs, so I double the recipe right away.

After 35 minutes of the cake baking in the oven, check it with a toothpick or bbq skewer. Poke it in the middle and if crumbs show up on it, bake it for 5-10 more minutes. If not. Just turn of oven off and let it sit for a half hour in the oven.

Here is the thinking behind the oven baking. The cake will bake at a lower temperature, not allowing the ‘bubbles’ in the cake mix to get too big and making it dense, not allowing the moisture to evaporate as quickly, and giving the cake time to rise as it cooks so it doesn’t have the large cracks in the top. Make sense?

When you pull the cake out of the oven, flip them out of the pans and onto a cutting board and place it in the fridge for an hour or two. Until you can rest your hand on it and not feel heat emanate from it.

From there, I’ll tort the cake using a cake leveler, then brush the cakes real well with the silicon brush to get crumbs off, then dam the top of the bottom half of the cake and add a filling, then put the top half of the cake on. Then I’ll use a piping bag and use a cake icing tip and coat the heck out of the cake.

To purchase the equipment or tools that I have, visit my store and get yourself some.