There are very few bakery professionals that don’t know the Wilton Method, which was first thought up in 1929 by Dewey McKinley Wilton. However, this method has evolved since its inception. You can find the Wilton School headquarters near the city of Chicago in Illinois. While the majority of people cannot travel to the city to join the school, there are other locations that have instructors who know the Wilton Method throughout the United States and Canada.

Keep in mind that you can also take Wilton cake decorating courses in your home with the full assistance and illustration of Wilton cake decorating books.

If you choose to learn the Wilton Method, there are four important Wilton cake decorating courses you’ll need to take to fully understand and appreciate before you can actually apply the technique. The four courses have four lessons apiece that you’ll need to learn. These are:

Course 1 – Discover Cake Decorating
Course 2 – Flowers and Borders
Course 3 – Fondant and Tiered Cakes
Course 4 – Fondant and Gum Paste

Each course comes with its own Wilton cake decorating books for you to use.

When you decide to attend the Wilton School, you’ll take the Discover Cake Decorating course. This course will gradually teach you the Wilton methods. It’s open to students of any level, from beginners wanting to learn something new to experts who are looking to start their business.

When you take this course, you’ll be practicing the following cake skills:

• Baking
• Applying borders
• Applying decorations including roses, animal heads, etc.
• Application of smooth frosting
• Icing preparation

You will acquaint yourself with some basic baking tools including:

• Brushes
• Decorating bag
• Flower nails
• Icing spatula
• Several decorating tips

What you learn in course two is built on what you learned from course one. Now you’ll learn how to apply buttercream frosting and royal icing. You’ll be able to create borders and lean how to make rosettes, rope designs and reverse shells.

With this course, you’ll learn how to create eight varieties of flowers including: daffodils, daisies, mums, pansies and rosebuds. The Flower and Borders course will also teach about the talent of both color design and flow. For the last project, you will be expected to design a flower basket cake, utilizing the technique called the basket weave.

If you’ve continued with the courses, the third course you’ll be taking is the Fondant and Tiered Cakes course. Here, you’ll learn five cake decorating techniques. The techniques include:

• Covering a cake that’s got a flat rolled fondant facade
• Shaping the fondant ingredient into different figures and flowers
• Designing lace accents and embroidery
• Doing string work
• Designing garland and ruffle borders

This course will also bring you up to speed on how to create other flowers such as petunias, poinsettias and Easter lilies. Students in this course have a final project to make a tiered cake decorated with string work, flowers and unique borders.

For the fourth Wilton cake decorating course, you’ll learn how to ornament cakes using fondant and gum paste. Here, you’ll learn a large array of techniques, make 3-D flowers and other miscellaneous shapes using just gum paste and fondant.  You’ll need special tools like a ribbon cutter. This device will allow you to design drapes, borders and textured ribbons. However, you’ll also learn five more techniques in this Wilton cake decorating course. These techniques are:

- Marbleizing fondant
- Coloring gum paste and fondant
- Covering your cake and board using fondant
- Designing textured decorations
- Designing gum paste leaves and flowers, some of the flowers you’ll create are daises and carnations

After you complete the fourth course, you’ll use all the skills you learned to put together the Grand Finale Cake.

Fascinated and want to attend a course? Then find a retailer that holds Wilton cake decorating courses. You’ll usually locate this information in a food crafts store, arts and crafts store and even large grocery store. However, don’t forget to get a Wilton cake decorating book to help you out as well.

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