Cake #2: Drop Flowers Galore!

For this basic white cake with buttercream frosting, I used the #2D tip to create a variety of blue flowers with #3 dots in the center. Although these are a fairly easy flower to create, I had some difficulty with the drop flower tip; I believe I would have had better luck if I had been using the tip specially-made for left-handers ! To finish the cake, I added a simple shell border along the bottom with the #21 tip.

Although decorating this cake was fairly easy, I could definitely use some more practice on my drop flowers. This past week, I spent most of my practice time working on the roses for my cake next week...guess I should have taken a moment or two to work on the borders. Hopefully my practice will pay off next week when I attempt to decorate with roses!

Cake #1: I'm a Star!

For my first decorating experience, I iced an 8" round French Vanilla cake (from a mix) in white buttercream frosting. For the decoration, I used a "star" cookie cutters to imprint the large star shapes on top the cake. I, then, outlined the stars in yellow buttercream using the #3 tip. To complete the cake, I used the #16 tip to fill the stars and the #18 tip to create the borders.

Although the cake ended up looking alright, I had a major problem with the base-layer of white buttercream. Apparently, I added too much water to my icing recipe. When I first iced my cake, there was no problem; however, when I opened my cake cover the next day at class, most of the icing along the sides had sagged and a clear sugary-liquid had oozed from the icing onto the cake board. Fortunately, the yellow borders distract (or at least cover) this problem.

Hopefully, more practice with the basic tips (and a thicker icing) will make for a more successful second attempt.