Trying my hand at cakes :)

One of my efforts at a new career is going to be cake decorating.  I stand by my long-time dream of opening my own bakery with Sha'lon, but as neither of us has much of a clue about the business aspect of this dream... its going to have to wait.  (On a third partner who will come along and keep the books and keep us in the black.)
The other reason it has to wait is because there is no immediate or even long-term likelihood that we'll live in the same region of the country, let alone the same city.  Darn men (and adoreable neices.)
So I signed up for a class... Cake Decorating for Beginniners.  I wanted to see if my drawing skills were something I could transfer over to icing.  Turns out I think they indeed are.
  Here's my second attempt at pro-cake-decorating.  The first attempt from the first day of class isnt worth showing.  But I will include an attempt from a year ago just because its a funny cake.

This is a technique called "basketweave."  It looks complicated.  It is complicated.  Most of the women in my class wanted to do a basketweave cake, which is quite an endeavor.  Few succeeded.  But some did.  I just tried it on a paper plate to perfect my skills, but selected a more "swirls n' pearls" design for my cake.

I took pictures as I went.  I had baked a chocolate devil's food cake (from a box) using all the tips and tricks we learned in class.  I iced it the night before (from a can) and made my icing reeeeeeally smooth.  I chose to try a pattern of big pearls for going around the border.  I like this look. You squeeze out big balls of icing and then wet your finger to push down all the little curly-cues.

Next I began my swirl designs on the side.  I experimented with flowers, vines, dots, etc.  I think the cake would even look nice if I had left it like this.

But I wanted to do the top... here's a picture of that.

Notice the Creamy Supreme can (I'll make icing one day... but not today.)  Its really an exquisite mess to decorate a cake.

And here's the finished product.  I had to add a little white for contrast.  I can't decide if I like it better this wat.  Takes away some of the chocolatey-ness from the look of the cake.

I had fun doing this.  I hope hope hope I can find a place that will take a risk on someone without culinary background and hire me!