Are you hungry?

This is going to be a me-bragging-about-food-I've-made type of post.

This month I've been taking a cake decorating class through our local university's community education program. For those who know me well, you know I L-O-V-E baking. Well, a few years ago my best buddy from high school took a cake decorating class in Hawaii and made this awesome cake. Of course I was horribly jealous and wanted to learn how to do something that awesome too. Well, I finally did it. During February I've been taking a cake decorating class. We didn't learn as much as my friend (her cake included gum paste flowers, and we only did butter cream stuff), but I did learn a lot. Here are some pictures to document my progress.

Week 1: we didn't bring any cakes or anything to decorate, so we just practiced with some icing. I didn't save any of my practices, as it was pretty basic and stuff I had mainly done before.

Week 2: We learned how to make round balls of icing. It's a lot more difficult than you think, because icing wants to act like Hershey Kisses and have a tail on the top! Here's my practice cake:

Week 3: We learned how to make some basic flowers and leaves. Loved 'em! The flowers were a lot harder than I expected. After lots of extra practice at the end of class, I finally got a few decent ones to decorate my cupcakes.

Week 4: Tonight was the last day of class. Our assignment was to come up with a cake design and implement it. We also learned how to do roses, though I just barely realized I didn't take any pictures of my completed roses before I threw them away. However, I am super, super excited about my cake. I took my inspiration from the nursery set that J and H picked out for their new baby. The colors didn't turn out quite right (mine is more of a violet than a plum), and the flowers on the outside of the cake were too tall, but otherwise I'm really thrilled with how it looked. It tasted pretty good too--strawberry cake with chocolate pudding, and a thin layer of icing. Yum!

Okay, cake decorating class done. For Valentine's Day, I made my hubby the following:

It's chocolate mousse (homemade) in a dark chocolate mini dessert cup (bought from a store) with red X and pink O sprinkles (a gift from my visiting teacher). I used my cake decorating tips to swirl them in the cup. Let me tell you--uh-maz-ing!!

Okay, boast-fest is done. Thanks for letting me brag.