Some of my best learning during Wilton courses has been from messing up the course cakes. My final cake for Course 2 (the oval one with basketweave) stuck to the pan, necessitating a fairly extensive glue job with icing to get it back together. It actually looked pretty good when I arrived at class. But then I started adding stuff to it. The basketweave turned out to be a bit too heavy for my repair job, and that whole side of the cake schlumped from the weight of the extra icing. Lesson learned: don't put heavy icing on weak cakes. (That sounds very zen!!)

Tonight it's the 2-tier cake and my fondant is all wrinkled and torn around the bottom. I was so careful to follow all the instructions! Even printed out Cheryl T.'s MMF instructions. Should have checked out the CC forums too. Seems my fondant problem is pretty common and could have been avoided if I'd read the posts on wrinkled fondant. I'm thinking about picking up some ribbon and doing a ribbon border instead of the BC ruffle tonight. Lesson learned: check the CC forums before trying something new. See what problems others have encountered and solved.

Someday I hope I'll be able to make a perfect cake--one without wrinkles, bumps, slumps or cracks. Till then, I'll keep checking in here to find out how to avoid messing up and how to fix things when I do.

Sorry to here about that!! I learn from my mistakes also!!! And thank God I've found this site!!! CC is the best thing that happened to cake after cheesecake

And I'm with you with that: Always check CC forum before doing anything!!!

Lorris

I think even after making the perfect cake you will need this site because there is a never ending well of information on here and i dont think its ever going to stop. Goodluck on your final cake.

I took my raggedy edged fondant cake to class last night and was surprised to see that mine was one of the better looking ones there. And once I got that nice ruffle border on, it looked pretty good--as long as you only looked at the front -lol-. BTW, I used my new Americolor dusty rose for the roses and everybody remarked on how beautiful they were. Compared to everyone else's Witon colors, mine were much softer and realistic looking. Sorry I can't upload a photo--still lobbying DH for a digital camera.

"Don't put heavy icing on weak cakes". I love that..it does sound very zen like!!! Now if i could just work that bit of knowledge into a conversation sometime....