Orchid Cake

8" round cherry cake (from a box), buttercream frosting

Techniques Used- spatula striping, rosette border, orchid flower

Focus-orchid flowers

I've been looking forward to making this cake for a while.  I saw a video on how to make these flowers, and they looked so easy, yet beautiful!  Needless to say, it took a lot of practice to get the flower to look the way I wanted.  I had to think really long and narrow.  Once I got the hang of it, a flower took 1-2 minutes. 

I also wanted to try having two different colors of frosting for the body of the cake; the top of the cake is white while the side of the cake is purple.  I thought this would be a good time to try this because I wanted there to be contrast for the edges of the flowers, but I didn't want the whole cake to end up white, looking washed out.  I smoothed the top of the cake first, and then did the side.  The top border can cover any mixing of frosting colors.  If you smoothed the side of the cake first, it would be harder to hide the mixed frosting, because the mixed frosting would show on the side instead of the top.

Lastly, I was very happy with how the rosette border turned out.  I learned that when releasing at the end, you have to still go sideways instead of upward.  I don't know if that makes any sense, but if you look at the difference between the white rosettes and the purple rosettes, I think you'll see the difference.  Both borders look fine, but the white ones end going outward (or away from the rosette), while the purple ones look more like a circle because the ends are sideways (or into the rosette).  Also, make the size of the circle big enough so you almost see a hole in the center.

This cake was decorated February 2012.