Flower Power Cake

9" White and Funfetti round, Buttercream frosting

Techniques Used-basketweave, rope border, carnation, Wilton rose, swirl star flower, rosebud, vines

Focus-letting someone else design and try out some techniques

While visiting family, my sister wanted to decorate a cake.  I asked her to make a design and then we figured out the finer details.  It turned out pretty much how she designed it, except that we had to change out daffodils for yellow carnations.  On the sides, the front half has vines and little flowers.  The back half is just basketweave.

 It was neat to see how the cake developed.  We started off with making flowers.  The flowers were mainly done by me, but that was mostly because I messed up the batch of frosting, so it was harder to manage.  I put more butter than shortening, and there was more powdered sugar than needed.  Anyway, all it did really was make the frosting more sensitive to temperature than usual, and it was also stiffer than usual.  I also discovered that I don't like how the flowers look when using flower formers. I think the formers are more for apple blossoms and daisies. 

After the flowers, we prepared the cake for decorating.  Part of the design was to have the casually smooth top in the front.  Since an assortment of flowers would be towards the back, we didn't need to casually smooth the entire top.  My sister did the basketweave, and I think she did a pretty good job.

After that, my sister did a rope border on the top and bottom and then we assorted the flowers on top.  We went through a surprising number of batches of frosting.  I think altogether I made 12 cups.  All of it didn't end up on the cake, partly because the frosting was so good that other family members couldn't stop eating it, and it was also the plan to make cupcakes, but we didn't get that far.  What's funny is the rope borders are blue and purple because we ran out of white, so we thought we'd better use up some of the other frosting. 

Next in line was adding the vines.  Once those were in place, we added little pink rosebuds, blue swirl star flowers, and a couple yellow and purple carnations to the vines.  Then there were leaves and the cake was finished. 

This cake was decorated July 2011.

Treble Clef and Bass Clef Cakes

Left Cake-8" round chocolate cake, chocolate buttercream frosting, powdered sugar

Right Cake-8" round white cake, buttercream frosting, cinnamon

Techniques Used-Basketweave, Shell Border, Stencil

Focus-Stencil

Stenciling cakes is one fairly easy way to spice up a cake.  It can be really intricately patterned or one big icon (as above).  I know Wilton and other cake decorating companies have different stencils, and I figure you can probably buy regular stencils as long as they haven't been used for other things and are cleaned.  The ones above of the treble clef and bass clef aren't store bought, and you may be hard pressed to find them.  I will let you know how I made these after I explain stenciling.

Stenciling Materials-stencil; fine mesh sieve; powdered sugar, cocoa powder, or spice (left cake has powdered sugar, right cake has cinnamon)

Stenciling-I recommend waiting to put on your top border until after you've stenciled your design.  It is possible (but harder) to stencil after the border is on there.  I also recommend practicing on another surface before trying the cake, especially if this is your first time.

1.  Lightly place the stencil where desired, making sure it isn't going to move.  Be sure to wait until the frosting is slightly dry (put it in the fridge for 20 minutes or so), otherwise the frosting will stick to the stencil.

2.  Hold your fine mesh sieve directly above the stencil anywhere between 4 and 12 inches from the cake.  Pour a little bit of powdered sugar (or whatever you're using) into the sieve and shake the sieve up and down lightly (a light bouncing movement).  Don't worry about the sugar "leaking" under the stencil; as long your stencil is flat to the cake and you're shaking up and down instead of side to side, the sugar will just fall straight down.  Repeat this until you have a fairly thick and even layer of sugar.  

3.  Lift the stencil very carefully and evenly.  Try and lift as smoothly as possible to avoid sugar from falling onto the cake.  You're done!

Making Your Own Stencil

Materials-Xacto knife, manila folder (or something hard and can easily be cut), pen

1.  Draw design on Manila folder.  As you are drawing it, try to imagine where the holes will be to make sure that you don't accidentally cut off inner portions of your design.  For example, on the treble clef (left cake), there is a little break on the top portion so that the inner circle wouldn't get cut off later.  Also, the straight line going down the right side wouldn't normally have little breaks either.

2.  Use the Xacto knife and carefully cut the folder.  Once that's done, you can start stenciling on the cake!

These cakes were decorated May 2010.

Rose and Swirl Flower Basketweave Cake

7 1/2" oval spice cake, apple filling, and white buttercream frosting

Techniques used-basketweave, Wilton rose, swirl flower, leaves, rope border

There wasn't a focus on this cake.  I actually only made the roses and flowers of this cake, but I still wanted to post this cake because it's something I can do, and I like the flower arrangement. 

This cake was decorated April 2009.

Strawberry Basketweave Cake

8" round vanilla cake, buttercream frosting, strawberries

Techniques Used-basketweave, rope border

I've wanted to make this cake for a long time.  I like how it looks like you have a full basket of fruit!  The nice thing about doing a basketweave border is that you don't have to worry about smoothing the cake.  The basketweave is such a nice design too.  You can change tips, use different colors, have different borders, etc.  Really, you can make the basketweave design as simple or complex as you want. 

This cake was decorated August 2009.