Garden Party Cake

8" White Cake, buttercream frosting

Techniques Used-swirl star flowers, leaves

Focus-swirl star flowers

This cake idea was in my Wilton Cake Course 1 book, but I don't think it's in print anymore.  When taking the cake class, I found that I really liked doing these flowers.  That's why I decided to try this cake out.  The difficulty with this cake was arranging the flowers, because they were delicate.  I should mention that I made all the flowers first on wax paper a couple days ahead of time.  Anyway, I'm happy with how the cake turned out.

This cake was decorated March 2009.

Roses, Flowers, and Dots Cake

8" round vanilla cake, buttercream frosting, blackberry filling

Techniques Used-Wilton rose, swirl star flower, dots, leaves, shell border

Focus-brush striping

I've always loved the two-tone flowers.  I thought blue would be such a neat color, because it's a color rarely seen in nature, and I wanted a lot of contrast with the white.  Also, I wanted to use a color that tasted good, so red and purple were out of the question.  By the way, there is a shell border underneath the swirl star flowers and leaves, so that they would have something to attach onto.  One more thing, the leftover frosting I had from the roses, I used on the cake, because I made the roses a couple of days ahead, so I mixed the remaining frosting with other white frosting to make this blue color, so there was very little frosting wasted. 

Brush Striping Materials-small brush (used only for food), food gel, frosting, disposable bag, tip

Brush Striping Directions-I'm not really going to go into directions, because I think Wilton does a good enough job and they have pictures of what they're doing.  You can probably find a video on the Internet as well.  However, I will give you some of my tips:

-Use more food gel than you think you need. 

-for roses, make sure the second color is aiming for the pointed part of the tip.

-Do practice roses without the second color.  Once you feel comfortable with making roses, then add the second color.

This cake was decorated May 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.

Sweet Peas and Star Flowers Cake

First Tier-10" vanilla round cake, buttercream frosting

Second Tier-8" chocolate round cake, buttercream frosting

Techniques Used-sweet pea flowers, star flowers, leaves, vines,

Focus-two tier cake

I knew that with a tiered cake, each tier can't just be place on top of each other without any support, but I wanted some practice with this.  Honestly, the design on the cake wasn't at all what I envisioned, even though I think it still looks nice. 

Tier Cake Materials-4-8 supports per tier (wooden dowels, tapioca/milkshake straws, Wilton supports, etc.)

Tier Cake Directions-Make sure each tier has a plate, foil-wrapped cardboard, or something similar underneath it. 

Take your supports and set them next to the bottom tier for your measurement.  Cut to the length you need, then stick them into the bottom tier.  I only used 4, but if you are starting out with bigger tiers, you may want more support. 

Another note, if you are wanting to make a "topsy turvy" cake, I would recommend watching the Cake Boss episode called "Freaks, Fast Food, & Frightened Frankie" from Season 2.  It shows how to stack the tiers about 9 minutes into the show. 

This cake was decorated September 2009.

Roses, Rosebuds, and Rosettes Cake

8" vanilla round cake, buttercream frosting, apricot filling

Techniques Used-Wilton rose, rosebuds, leaves, rosettes, rope border

Focus-rosebuds, rosettes

I found this design in an older version of Wilton's cake decorating course books, and liked how simple and elegant it looked.  I chose orange for the cake because I hadn't used that color before, nor had I tried mixing colors since starting to decorate cakes.  I think it turned out to be a nice shade of orange, not too bright and not too dull.  The trick is to start out with more yellow dye than red (one horse to one rabbit), and then add a tiny amount of red, if needed. 

I won't go into how to make rosebuds and rosettes because I didn't take pictures of the process, and I think it would be more helpful to have pictures than my description alone.  I know Wilton cake decorating books show how to do these, and I would assume that other cake decorating books would as well.

This cake was decorated October 2009.

Majestic Roses Cake

9" chocolate round cake, buttercream and chocolate buttercream frosting

Techniques Used-Wilton rose, leaves, shell border

I got this cake design from my Wilton Cake Decorating Course 1 book, but unfortunately, I believe it is out of print.  The original design was exactly like this except for one thing-everything was white.  I decided to go with chocolate on white because I thought this same design would look good with the contrast.

This cake was decorated March 2009.