SOCS – Recipe

For Linda’s challenge:

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS June 1, 2024

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This is a post I wrote way back in 2014!  🙂

DECORATING A CAKE

Don’t you love the pretty decorated cakes you see at the bakery? There are cute birthday cakes, graduation cakes, party cakes, and the beautiful wedding cakes. I’ve even seen some really crazy looking ones that they make on the tv shows. It is very interesting how they put those together.

I took a cake decorating class a few years ago. It was at a craft store. In a back room, several people would sit at tables, while the instructor taught us about the kinds of equipment needed, such as special tips, pastry bags, spatulas; and, about the different types of borders, flowers, writing, and colorings you could use.

The basic set of tools were included in the price of the course. One of our first assignments was to bake a couple of cake layers, mix up some icing, and bring these to class. We would practice on these cakes. It was a lot of fun, and we were thrilled to see our creation. Every class, we had another assignment. We learned how to do fancy borders, how to do different types of writing words in icing, mixing colors, how to do flowers, and leaves.

At the end, we got a certificate of completion, and we could proudly say we were cake decorators! I still have my kit, and still decorate cakes on occasion, just for fun. One of the best things I learned, was the recipe for that bakery cake type icing. It is very simple.

Decorating Icing (Buttercream Icing)

1 pound confectioner’s sugar (powdered sugar)

1/3 cup of Crisco (shortening)

1/4 cup water (slightly less for roses)

1 teaspoon vanilla

(if butter cream flavor is desired, omit vanilla and substitute 1/2 teaspoon Wilton’s butter flavor)

Combine all ingredients and beat with electric mixer, at least 5 minutes.

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If you get a chance, you should take a class. It’s fun, and you get to eat your homework assignment!

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Here are a few I made. Not the greatest, but sure were fun to decorate and eat!

• Square sheet cake (3 cats & says Happy Cat Day)
• Red/white/blue on white 2 layer cake (patriotic decorations – Election Day 2000) with two beanie babies red & blue
• Square sheet cake decorated for the TV show The Amazing Race (2 girl figures drawn on)
• Round white/yellow/blue Clown cake
• Round white cake with pink roses
• White/red/green Hello Kitty stand up cake

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“MacArthur Park”, sung by Richard Harris. At the end of the video it explains that this is basically a true story, about the love lost by the composer of this song, Jimmy Webb and his girlfriend, who stood him up and married someone else. All the imagery in the song he said really happened. Here’s the Wiki link to the song and how it came about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacArthur_Park_(song)

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Thanks for visiting! Peace ☮️

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