Girls on Wheels Have Our Cake … and Eat It, Too

Vicki Baker

Walking into a bakery shop, a wave of intoxicating scents washed over us: sweet vanilla, toasted almonds, caramelized sugar, and rich cocoa. Our eyes immediately went to the display cases where dozens of ornate creations sat on pristine platters. Tiered wedding cakes decorated with delicate, edible flowers. Rows of cupcakes with colorful swirls of frosting. Festive layer cakes topped with playful trimmings.

Seeing a simple cake transformed into such a beautiful work of art, Girls on Wheels thought, “Bet we could do that!” But we had never attempted to decorate a cake before. This was a foreign world to us. So, we took the plunge and enrolled in a hands-on cake school. It sounded like a fun place to “study,” and our sweet tooth was chomping at the bit to give it a try.

We donned our aprons, ready to become the cake artists we had always dreamed of being. Everything we needed for the class was already set out. A pre-baked, two-layer cake was plonked down in front of us, along with tubs of white buttercream frosting. After a brief introduction and description of what the various tools were used for, we dove right in.

The class was all about “creative freedom,” and we soon learned it was best not to compare our efforts to other’s in the class. Though next time we’ll need to avoid being sandwiched between the aspiring Rembrandt and Michelangelo of cake decorating!

We started frosting our cakes. Of course, we had to “accidentally” taste test the icing, all the while thinking, “Less in the mouth, more on the cake.” But that didn’t stop us. We’d never tasted anything so delicious.

So we’re slapping and slopping frosting onto our cakes with abandon, forgetting the instructions about keeping the edges neat. The more we tried to smooth things out, the messier it got, with crumbs everywhere. But not to worry. Everything was fixable, and all our mistakes were edible.

Now onto decorating. It was a bit tricky stuffing the frosting into the plastic piping bags, twisting the bag almost mercilessly to force the frosting all the way into the tip. Ignoring the rules about how much and when to squeeze, we just did our own thing—not a good idea. The longer we piped the icing, the more goo we had on our hands and aprons. Some of our attempted stars, swirls, and scallops actually looked more like squat buttercream slugs. But looks aren’t everything. Later, we sampled our handiwork. The hype was real: The cake was decadent, rich, and moist, complemented perfectly by the super-sweet vanilla buttercream frosting.

No, the cake decorating class didn’t immediately turn us into master cake decorators and buttercream legends, but it was a fun, creative outlet. Girls on Wheels tapped into this almost childlike, silly, creative part of ourselves. And it’s so much better than painting or sculpting, because in the end, we got to eat our creations.