Okay, so... this week we did the grand finale cake (yeah, I'm not even kidding, that's what the COURSE calls this cake). As you've seen, we've spent the last two weeks learning how to do various royal icing flowers. This week we learned the basket weave technique. The idea was to make an oval shaped "basket" cake, and then to place the flowers on the cake, trailing down the side. For example, this is the cover of the Course II book, showing their idea of the finale:
Yeah, I know. It seems impossible, right? But, it isn't impossible. It's actually ... pretty easy. I (of course) took pics as I went, so I could document the process for you. First things first (and the one step I don't have photographic evidence of), you mark the cake where you're gonna make the basket lines. It was really easy, we just made indentations in the icing with the spatula, marking 32 lines evenly along the outside of the cake. (There's a diagram in the book, but I went with free-hand marking it in half, and then half again, and then half again). Once the lines were made, you make straight lines up the cake from the bottom to the top.
Then you proceed to "weave" the icing over/under the lines. (Yeah, it's not actually woven - nor does the icing actually go over/under. It's a total fake out, you just alternate by doing one level of icing over the center line, and then the next line breaking at that center line and going over the next.) Like so:
This is the finished product. EASY-PEASY, I'm telling you! It took maybe half an hour to do the weave. MAYBE. And it looks hard. Seriously, who knew that cake decorating was so easy?
Now, to add the flowers. (And again, I'm sorry, I didn't think to take a pic of this.) You dump a boatload (maybe half a cup) of icing out of your bag onto the top of the cake, so you have a pile of frosting... and then you randomly stick flowers into it. (And when I say "randomly stick flowers"... I mean randomly.) Here's a shot of the top of my cake:Deciding how/where to put the flowers was giving me a headache (okay, who's kidding who? I had one to start with...), so I opted not to trail the flowers down the side of the cake. This is the side angle of my finished product. (And yes, there is Dr. Pepper in that Arby's cup you can see in the top right corner of the pic.)
Ooh, and before I forget, here is Tiffany's (aka: Perfect Girl's) cake. I wish I had a close-up of her basket weave. As much as I've love to say that her icing was softer, and that's why her weave was nearly flawless (and not that she's just flat out stronger than I am, and her grip is better), well... we all know the truth (I am a weakling and cannot even squeeze a frosting bag very hard). Oh well... so what if she's a little bit of perfection? (All the friggin time.) She's still nice... and her cake was BEAUTIFUL!
And speaking of BEAUTIFUL cakes, you HAVE to check out Christian's. All of the examples we'd seen were springy cakes (ala my "baby shower" cake... and no, I didn't actually make it for anyone's baby shower... it just looked like that was its plan in life). As this was the first week of Fall, Christian wanted to do something Fall-ish (even the cake itself was fall themed, and I'm telling you ... it was a-freakin-mazing! ... spice cake with maple/cinnamon icing ... I was literally dipping my finger in to her frosting bowl all night long ... that icing was soooo good, I could not get enough of it!) Also, she went with the star tip rather than the basket tip. It had much the same effect, but because the star lets more icing out at a time, she had a different texture in her weave. It was bigger and bubblier (and there was more icing on the cake, which is always a good end result, if you ask me). Also, she did the color flow pumpkins - totally thought of it on her own. She's a creative genius. Check it:
And, as I'm sure you noticed, she did trail her flowers down the side. Wasn't it AMAZING?! The colors were freaking awesome... the colors, and the shapes, were so perfect! Here's a close-up, so you can better see the design/texture of her flowers. Oh. My. Freaking. Gosh. BEAUTIFUL!!!
Christine, sadly, erm.... forgot her cake at home the morning of class (we bring our cakes/supplies to work on Thursdays and then go straight to Michael's after work), so she didn't have anything to deliver. She's gonna do hers over the weekend, and then I'll post it for the world to see, too.
Ooh, but while I'm thinking... I think I will do a little show & tell that my cousin Becca told me about. (She's taking the same classes in Utah that I'm taking here in AZ, how awesome is that?) She gave me a helpful hint about making roses that I've been meaning to pass on. The book tells you to make a column/cone of icing for the center of your rose, then attach leaves as you go around. Said column should be roughly the size/diameter of a Hershey's kiss. Becca's helpful hint: just use a Hershey's kiss for your center (that way, you don't have to worry about the cone being too soft, not the right size... not meeting your quota of chocolate for the day). Please allow me to show you. It's pretty awesome. You start with the kiss. "Glue" it to a piece of parchment/wax paper with some icing:
Then take your icing around the tip of the kiss (to cover the chocolate and form the center of the rose):
Add petals in rows down. The royal rose is, I think, 7 layers of petals from the top - and the butter cream rose is 5. (Again, I think. We all know that I never follow the rules, and if you'll recall, my roses are prone to look more like hydrangeas than roses, anyway.)
The kiss is pretty cool - you can use it for either a royal icing or butter cream rose. My only suggestion would be to buy those random specialty kisses (like the strawberries & cream, or peppermint that you can get at Christmas), so you're trying to cover white chocolate instead of brown chocolate. If the rose isn't tight enough, you can see the brown chocolate coming through, and I think that white would be less noticeable. (OR I could squeeze the bag harder and make a tighter rose... Always a nice thought, but we all know that it's never gonna happen.)
Anyhoo... that's the update on cake class this week. Sorry that it was so late in coming, for those of you who I know have been looking for it (that would be you, Cousins Julie & Becca). Also, just an fyi: I know that I've talked before about there being 4 courses, and how we intended to take all 4 of them. ... While we do intend to take all 4, we're .... well .... a little bit sick & tired of making cakes every single blasted week of our lives, so we're taking at least a month off. So, no cake class posts for the month of October. As a substitute, you can look forward to posts regarding my upcoming birthday celebration, as well as exotic vacation destination teasers. Don't worry, I'm not falling off the edge of the blogging world. I'm just freeing up my Thursday nights for a bit. (And who could blame me, now that The Office is back?) Look forward to seeing a posting of Christine's cake in the next few days... You know that I do love to play show & tell with everyone's cakes. (to be read in a sing-songy voice) Thanks again for checking my blog (and the cakes) out. You know we love you... (Yeah, I did just share ownership of loving you with my cake... like it's a proper noun... CLEARLY, I need a break from cake class. It's gone to my head...) But really, thank you. And, as always, comments (and compliments) are welcomed (and graciously accepted).