Class Descriptions

Zillycakes Class Descriptions 2011

Cake Basics 101
Learn everything about how the pros bake, cut, fill, crumb coat, and ice a layer cake.  Class begins with Zilly demonstrating how to make her fabulous Italian meringue buttercream and ends with each student filling and icing their own layer cake.  Materials are included.  You learn the process AND you take home a cake!

Buttercream Piping and Working with Color
Find your own rhythm with a professional piping bag and icing tips galore.  Unlike some classes which claim there is only one right way to pipe, Zilly explains the basics and then encourages students to experiment and play.  Using only a few key decorating tips, you’ll discover an amazing array of effects you can achieve.  In addition, Zilly offers good working information about basic color rules and how to use them to enhance your cakes at home.  Your final round of practice will be on your own mini cake which you will take home with you!

Fondant 101
Students will experiment with our own special house recipe for this gorgeous rollable icing.  Our fondant actually tastes like food!  After a demonstration by Zilly, you’ll cover your own mini cake with fondant and then make some fondant decorations to adorn it.  We learn how to make different kinds of borders, and how to use basic fondant colors to mix new colors and to create a marbled effect.   Fun!

Royal Icing for Cakes and Cookies
After showing students how to mix royal icing to the right consistency and form parchment cones, Zilly will demonstrate the many uses of this special icing.  On fondant covered mini “fake cakes” we’ll practice vertical piping and string work.  Next, we’ll color royal icing in small batches and experiment with piped designs on four different designs of our special sugar cookies (which you get to take home!) Class will end with an explanation and demonstration of flood work.

Tiered Cakes
Ever want to make a three-tiered cake?  Anything taller than a single layer needs support structure and requires special techniques to execute it flawlessly.  Zilly will explain the challenges and demonstrate the process.  Students will then ice, stack, and decorate their own teeny 3 tier cake, to be taken home at the end of class.  The cakes will already be filled with buttercream for you.

Gumpaste Flowers
Using Satin Ice gumpaste and a whole variety of cutters, Zilly will demonstrate the basics of making assorted blossoms from a single piece of gumpaste.  After students have experimented and created a small bouquet, we’ll tackle flowers that require multiple parts, like the rose and the calla lily.  We’ll work with white and colored gumpaste; at the end of class, Zilly will demonstrate petal dusts, luster, and hand-painting techniques on gumpaste flowers.

Gumpaste and Rice Krispy Treat Sculpted Elements
Here at Zillycakes we use gumpaste and Rice Krispy Treats to sculpt a wide variety of 3-D forms and objects for our cakes and cupcakes.  Let us teach you how to sculpt too!  This is really an art class in an edible medium…most of us at Zillycakes worked with clay before gumpaste, and it shows in our production and teaching techniques.  Come make tiny art with us!

Artistic Cakes: Gumpaste Appliqué and Hand Painting
In college, Zilly was a major in Printmaking.  This training has influenced the way she designs cakes, and she’ll share one of the more innovative processes with you in this class.  Using an X-acto knife, acetate, gumpaste, and tracing paper, you’ll design your own original appliqués for a cake!  You’ll work on one of our fondant covered cake dummies which you get to take home along with cake paints so you can continue to practice!  All materials are included!

Cake Sculpting Part 1
Thanks to The Ace of Cakes on the Food Network, cake sculpting is all the rage!  It’s a messy process, but the end product is worth it.  For an extra bonus, any cake that gets carved away is perfect for snacking!  In the first part of this 2 part class, students will identify a form they are trying to achieve, make a mini-model in clay, then carve and sculpt a three-dimensional cake.  Some parts may also be created out of Rice Krispy Treats.  Your cake will go home with you to live in your freezer for a week until you come back to us to finish it in Part 2!

Cake Sculpting Part 2
Working from the cake form you sculpted during the previous week, we’ll finish the sculptures off with buttercream, fondant, gumpaste, royal icing, and hand painting.  Zilly will demonstrate, and then each student will apply those techniques to their own specific form.  After a mini art “opening” complete with a photoshoot, you’ll take your masterpiece home to devour.