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.

Fleur de lis Cake

8" round yellow cake, buttercream frosting

Techniques Used-Fleur de lis, rope border, rosettes, reverse shell

Focus-side garlands, using one tip

I saw this one video on how to measure out the side garlands and I wanted to try it out.  He took a plastic cup and made an imprint on the sides.  He was a little bit sloppy with his piping, but I still liked his idea and thought I would try it out.  For my imprint, I used tip 789 (as seen below).  I wasn't sure if they would be evenly spaced, so I first made an imprint on north and south, then roughly checked to see how many would fit in between.  There was enough room to have 12 imprints altogether, so I then proceeded to make an imprint on east and west, and then two between each. 

Here are some pictures of the imprints before the piping.  This made piping the rope border very easy and look really nice because I wasn't having to eyeball it while in the process. 

I also used the same method for the top of the cake.  I don't think it would've turned out as nicely if I tried to eyeball a perfect circle.

Lastly, I thought you would like to see close-ups of the different techniques.  When learning a technique, it's nice to have as many pictures and examples as possible. 

Rope garland with rosettes, reverse shell borders

Rosettes

Top view of reverse shell border

This cake was decorated September 2011.

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.