Wilton Cake Decorating Challenge, May, 2010

The next cake competition I entered after the STITR last year was the Wilton Cake Decorating Challenge on May 22, 2010. This competition was planned and organized by my Wilton instructor.

The theme was "Wedding and Special Occasion Cakes"; cakes had to be a minimum of 2 tiers and could be pre-iced or covered in fondant (no borders or other decor). Decorations could be pre-made but could not be added to the cake until after the start time. I had a blast making this for the top of my wedding cake...




Once there, we had 1 1/2 hours to decorate our cakes. We were in the classroom at Michael's so people could watch us through the window and come in and out of the room. I had NO idea how nerve wracking it would be to have people watch me decorate! On the other hand, it was fun hearing people's comments and answering questions.

I started with a naked green cake and added "love letters" and hearts...

Then borders and scrolls and details...

You would never guess how much I had practiced piping scrolls prior to this cake. Remember how nerve wracking this was? My hands were shaking and my piping was nowhere near as good as it could have been. Not to mention, 1 1/2 hours goes by really fast! Overall, though, I was pretty happy with the end result.

Our finished cakes were scored by the judges and kept on display for a couple of hours so customers could vote for their favorites. Much to my amazement, I won 1st place for both the judges pick and customer favorite!

Here's the pictures I took of the other contestants' cakes...

2nd Place
Amazing figures!

After 1st and 2nd place, I honestly don't remember how the other cakes placed but here they are, in no particular order...

Loved the color combination on this one!

What a fun graduation cake!

All in all, this was a really fun and rewarding day! Charity, thanks for doing all the planning and work it took to do this...and thank you for the in-progress pictures of my cake!

Again, thanks for reading. Next? The El Paso County Fair, July 2010.