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I have taken a few Craftsy cake decorating classes and they have all been great but I think Marina Sousa’s class, “Designer Fondant Textures“ is my favorite so far. I am blown away by how much I learnt from her! 😀

This is one of those classes that you should really watch if you want to learn LOTS of different “texture-inspired” cake decorating techniques. She covered 18 different techniques (YES…18!), which allows you to add abstract effects, movement, volume, and somewhat of a 3D effect to your cakes.

About the instructor:

Marina is an excellent instructor. She is extremely knowledgeable about cake decorating and explains all the different techniques thoroughly. She doesn’t rush through anything and takes her time. She also shares lots of little tips and tricks throughout the class, which I found very helpful. She even answered many questions that students have asked her in the past, which I thought was really nice of her.

For those of you who don’t know Marina, her work is incredible and her cakes have been featured in various magazines like Brides, The Knot and InStyle and she’s even competed/judged in Food Network challenges.

So, trust me… you are in very good, experienced hands 🙂

About the class – Designer Fondant Textures:

Marina starts off the class by showing how to make Sequins, using gelatin and fondant. I have seen gelatin sequins on many cakes in the past but I assumed it was a complicated technique. It’s actually surprisingly easy and creates an extraordinary effect on your cakes.

Then, she moves on to different Ruching techniques, accomplished by draping, embossing and hand painting. I think these techniques are great for making bridal gown- inspired cakes. I am in love with the embossing technique where Marina shows how abstract impressions can be made on a cake using simple cake decorating tools that most of us already have.

In the next section of her class, she goes into different Fringe techniques, which includes fringe bands, fringe swags and fringe loops. They create a lot of volume and movement in cakes. Even though these techniques are awesome, you need to use various Kitchen Aid pasta cutter attachments. I can’t even imagine how difficult it will be to do any of these techniques without those attachments…

The next section of her class focuses on Zebra prints. She shows how you can get the zebra print effect on a cake, using stencils, embossing and even hand painting. These techniques are great to have under your belt, especially when you are asked to make those hip and girly fashionista cakes 😉

My absolute favorite section of her class comes next… Geometric textures. I adore making abstract cakes and the techniques that Marina shared were brilliant! She explained how to make geometric folded squares and also showed how to do the onlay technique and inlay technique. Everything about this section was so fun and whimsical and I loved it!

The final section of Marina’s class focused on making Ruffles. She used a fan press to create accordion-like ruffles. Then, she used a basic circle cutter to make petal ruffles she even used a basic flower cutter to make blossom ruffles. This section of her class had a more romantic, feminine feel to it and I was impressed by how ruffles can be made in so many different ways.

After learning all these beautiful techniques, the cake design possibilities are now endless 😀 Click here to take the class

The best thing about this class was that I can combine many of these techniques together on a single cake design.

For instance, this is an abstract cake that I made after watching her class and getting totally inspired! I love how it turned out!

I applied 2 of Marina’s techniques on this cake –“the geometric folded square technique” and “the inlay technique” and I truly believe that these techniques allowed me to really bring the cake vision I had in my head to life!

This is my take on her geometric folded squares…

I attached them to the cake in more of a “diamond” orientation and I outlined like them with a black marker.

And here is a close-up of the inlay technique…Very cute. Right? 🙂

Well, I hope you liked this cake.

I highly recommend taking Marina Sousa’s “Designer Fondant Textures“ Craftsy class so that you can make beautiful texture-inspired and abstract cakes as well.

Happy caking everyone!