My week at Planet Cake Part 3

Hello, my Animal friends. I dedicate this entry to my God son, Patrick who is scarily obsessed with animals. His parents are at the zoo every weekend, I kid you not.

Anyway, Wednesday, the middle of the course, is known as "rest" day. We didn't have to ganache a cake, decorate a cake or stand up most of the day.

In fact the first half was very relaxing. We watched the instructor bake two cakes and make ganache. My mind wandered, I regrouped, it was great!

Then just before lunch we started piping. Never my strong suit. In fact, I usually do ANYTHING to avoid writing on a cake or piping. My girlfriend, Tammie can vouch for that, decorated a whole Llama cake but wouldn't do the eyes or the words! A few people struggled and really lost the plot. Some of us did okay and others just had the confident knack.

They say with Cake Decorating you should cross skill as much as you can, but like anything, there are some areas of cake decorating you are really going to take to and others you dislike. Given my already lack of desire for the fine hand required for piping, I decided to go in with an open mind. Who knows? Maybe they had invented some new way of piping in the last 20 years and it was all going to fall into place.

Ah......nope. Didn't happen! I will say this, we all had to practice on the stainless steel bench top before piping on our square. ALL of us where much, much, much better on the bench. The instructor said it all had to do with confidence. We were brave on the bench top because we were practicing. But once we went to the board, we got nervous because it was "for real". I think there is something in that.

Anyway, here it is. This shot was taken in the hotel room so some of it had been broken on the bus home, but you get the general idea. I personally love the ducks!

After lunch was much more fun. We modelled animals. I really enjoyed this and the boy figure of the day before. It is much like playing with playdough or clay, so maybe I am just a big kid at heart.

Here are the results. All made with icing, so all edible although I can't believe you would want to. Some of the photos are a bit blurry, but you will get the idea. The Lion was my favorite!