Finishing a cake with buttercream petal icing

Although I work in a school, I'm not a teacher.  I teach cupcake decorating as a paid hobby, and really enjoy it - so was thrilled to be asked to demostrate a finishing technique to a senior class of Cake Decorating pupils in the Home Economics Department.

I thought I may as well make the cake fun to eat, so coloured the dough and attempted the zebra interior again, this time in pink and white.  I wasn't sure who exactly would eat it, but they may as well enjoy it, right?

I took the cake into school baked and cooled and with just the crumb coating on, to allow the pupils to see how I filled the piping bag and did the technique right from the start.  I was a little bit nervous, as though I recognised some of the students from previous years, I was in a different class with a different teacher - and very aware that my method of information delivery was not a qualified-by-the-general-teaching-council one...

Nonetheless, the pupils seemed eager to have a go themselves, as with the amount of practice I've had at this particular finish, it probably didn't look that difficult to them.  Until it was time to do it themselves - and didn't they do a great job?  These are 16-17 year olds who have had a term or two of cake decorating and were becoming more and more confident with their skills.  

We talked about how well they did, and if they didn't feel that they'd done as well, how they could fix that problem.

And when photographed from certain angles, no customer would notice the piping work that troubled them.

Hubby took the cake in to work the next day and by all reports it was demolished at morning tea and lunchtime!  So success all round I would say, wouldn't you?

Hubby remembered to take a photo of the interior for me, so I could see if the zebra pattern worked - I don't know, what do you think?  It's kinda hard to tell...  :)

Petal technique ombre birthday cake

It was M's mums birthday and they'd loved the Rainbow cake I'd made them recently, so wanted something in lilac for this family occasion.  No problem I said, there was something I'd been wanting to try out for a little while now, and this seemed like the perfect chance.

Like the petal cake I'd done as Mini-2's party cake, this was also going to utilise that lovely effect.  But this time, I wanted to try shading the colours of icing.  Hence the 'ombre' in the title, meaning shadow (or something similar at least).  I used the same recipe as for the rainbow cake, but only split the mix into 3 bowls, and made 3 shades of purple for the sponge.

They look good, right?  I wanted to achieve the same shades with the buttercream too, and think I nearly got it...

Then it was a case of icing the cake, after its crumb-coating.  I had previously not continued the design onto the top of the cake, and was quite pleased with how prettily this worked out this time.

Then it was a case of adding on the little plaque to say Happy Birthday Grandma on top - I love these plaque cutters.  I bought them online from Karen's cookies and will use them for cookies soon too.

 I couldn't decide which picture looked prettier, I think the latter - what do you think?

Petal cake for a birthday girl

We talked over a few cake ideas, Mini-2 and I, for her birthday party.  We had bought some coordinating Muppet plates, cups and napkins a while ago (because we happened across them in shop one day, and they were on offer - we love a bargain) and had also bought some rice paper toppers from The Cupcake Company on Facebook (website coming soon)  in a similar vein (i.e. some Sesame St characters too) and had thought to somehow combine the lot of them in a cakey style.  A two tier cake sounded fun, and I had thought to do polka dots, like the border of the napkin.

But all those ideas went out the window when I saw the utter mess that was the top tier cake.  Oh my goodness, I don't think I have ever had such an unmitigated disaster with a cake before!  I had sized down the recipe I chose, using the fabulous CakeOMeter.  Only it ended up giving me so much mix that it went right up and over the top of the tin whilst baking, and never fully cooked in the centre.  This was despite me using a heating core and extending the cooking time by almost double.  Gee whizz.

So it was to be a single tiered chocolate fudge cake after all that (the pink vanilla cake wasn't even salvageable for cake pops, sniff).  I had been keen to try the petal technique of buttercream icing since seeing it on MyCakeSchool, but hadn't yet had an occasion to do so.  Aha, I thought, perfect occasion now. 

Once it was done it seemed a bit plain, so I added  a few sparkly flying butterflies and the job was done.  And the best bit?  Despite not being a part of our discussed plan At All, she totally loved the cake :)

At her actual party a few hours later, checking out how the number 5 candle looks from the side...  Do you see the big, pink Birthday Girl rosette badge?  She wore it to school on the actual day and got to wear it again today :)

And here she is posing for Daddy to take a photo.  Not quite sure why she wanted us to specifically take a photo of her with a Very Big Knife, about to cut her cake, but her wish is our command.  Happy Birthday darling!