Ways with cardboard and frosting

This week the Princess and a friend begin an exciting new adventure. Periodically the Princess takes classes on various subjects, which the Hero heartily encourages so she can improve her mind and skills, and also so she will not have as much free time in which to pester him with such requests as helping more with the laundry. 

This time the Princess has successfully recruited an accomplice to take a class with her. After considerable contemplation over which class would most contribute to their long-term growth and development and would stretch their complex analytical skills, they have chosen a class on cake decorating. 

This decision has met with enthusiastic reception by family and co-workers who have unselfishly given their support, as long as this support involves helping to consume our finished projects.

The Hero offered his opinion that I should bake, and then practice decorating on, his favorite gluten-free chocolate zucchini cake, which is actually much better than it sounds, as evidenced by the fact that even I will eat it. He was indignant at my suggestion that it is not the type of cake that gets decorated.

"Anything can be decorated," he said.

Which is probably what will happen in the class, as I told my friend when she wondered if we had to have any sort of baking skills to take this class.

"Probably not," I said. "They'll probably won't even trust us with an actual cake. We'll have to practice decorating on cardboard."

This does not make us dismayed, however, because even many cakes you see displayed in bakeries, or at wedding receptions, are not actually cakes. For year, wedding guests have suspected this. "What is this, cardboard?" is a frequently heard comment at receptions. This is because it is cardboard, the couple being able to afford only the frosting part after paying for more important parts of the wedding, such as the little guest favors wrapped up in pieces of old netting.

The stated goals of the cake decorating class are rather vague in the catalog, but given our combined level of knowledge about the subject, we are hoping that the goals are very basic, such as "Students will be able to identify the various elements involved in cake decorating, such as the cake."

Other people's ideas of basic, however, may vary slightly from my own, given the results I get when researching basic cake decorating techniques online (making a 3-d rock climber is apparently considered, in some circles, extremely basic). My idea of basic, and one technique that I sincerely hope this class will teach me, is to be able to hold the frosting bag in the correct position so as to encourage the frosting to come out the bottom, toward the cake, rather than out the top, toward me. I have quite a bit of experience with the latter technique should anyone in the class need some tips.

But I feel encouraged that I am quite good at creating circles with a frosting tip, although they might be more accurately termed "blobs." And who knows? We may surprise ourselves and find that we have a real talent for cake decorating. We may even move on to Cake Decorating II: Advanced Techniques with Cardboard.