Wilton basic cake decorating class- 2

The whole week I was pretty busy with the kids. Though I was so excited about the class, didn't have much time to prepare for it ahead of time. I didn't get any supplies required for the class till last moment, except for the vegetable shortening and confectioner's sugar and rest of the items were bought by my hubby and handed them over to me while i was in the class. This time whatever possibly can go wrong, went wrong. I had overbaked the cake, it was dry and crumbly, icing was very stiff and oversweet too. As per the recipe, had to use 1 lb confectioners sugar, but i had 4 lb bag. I browsed and came across somewhere that roughly around 4 cups makes a pound. Aahhh.. that is where I went wrong. It didnt actually work out that way.  It made the icing very very stiff and too sweet. The lesson learnt here is: when the recipe calls for weight based measurements, then its better to find a scale, rather than making approximate measurements. The weight of the sugar will vary depending on how densely it is packed and humid it is. So it is not accurate to measure it by volume.

This class we were taught to frost the cake and do some basics like zig- zags, curving lines and dimensional decorating. Using those techniques we decorated a simple cake. I chose a fish design. As the icing was very stiff, it was hard for me to squeeze. My hands were aching and i had tough time. The cake didn't come out the way I expected but I learnt a lot in the class. Next week its going to be cupcakes. Hopefully I don't make any mistakes like this.  :)