Anniversary Flower Cake

I'm afraid I must apologize again for not posting in a while. As I have quite a bit of catching up to do, I'm going to try to keep this short and sweet - pun intended ;)

This cake was for a friend of mine who wanted one to share with her husband for their anniversary. She told me she trusted my judgement and basically gave me free rein of the design. I went to Pinterest for some inspiration, and ultimately decided to go for a modern, clean cut design with a few bold colors. I also took the opportunity to try my hand at making fondant flowers, as it really opens the door to so many different cake designs.

To get started I watched a lot of YouTube videos; I found there are quite a few helpful ones that you can find with a simple search for "fondant flowers." After a while there was nothing left but to just jump in. Here was my first attempt:

Red fondant flower

Two things I learned:
1) Try to roll out the fondant as thin as possible, without compromising the integrity. If the petals are too thick, the bottom of the rose will get way too bulky.
2) If you have a way of hanging the rose upside down to dry, do so, because drying it any other way results in the flower looking misshaped.

For my two bold colors I decided to go with black and red since the two of them together look quite captivating. Since I was also going for a modern style I thought the motto "less is more" worked well in this case. And of course I decided to put a few hearts on it too, because what's an anniversary cake without hearts? The black hearts have a little gold heart on top to add just a little extra color and dimension.

I also sprayed the cake with a little bit of the Wilton Color Mist, in the shade of "pearl" so it just gives it some shimmer.

The final design was simple, yet elegant and romantic, with the flowers being the center of attention. 

I'm happy to say it was very well received! I just wish I had been able to taste a piece. That's the only downside to making cakes for other people ;)

Anniversary Cake: Pearls and Rosettes

I've been browsing some more cake decorating tutorials, from Global Sugar Art and Wilton. This of course made me want to make another cake. Luckily my parents anniversary was just around the corner so I thought it would make a nice present for them.

Note: The video from Global Sugar Art on Buttercream Basics: Making a Cake, has some great tips that make a really big difference on the texture and flavor of cakes.

I really enjoyed the chocolate flavor of the last cupcakes I made, so that made me want to try making a chocolate cake. I also love how well the chocolate flavor pairs with the vanilla buttercream frosting.

Thus far I have made a fair amount of cupcakes with the rosettes on top, but none on a cake, and I just love how cool they look on a cake. Additionally, given how pretty they are, I thought they would be a nice decoration on an anniversary cake.

I really like the look of a cake that has different shades of the same color, which I hadn't tried before.
I opted to go with different shades of blue, because it's one of my favorite colors, and I knew it would be a nice complement to the chocolate color of the cake (which you could see when you cut into the cake).

The cake came out very nicely done, with amazing flavor, just like the chocolate cupcakes had. One thing I will say though is that because this was an extremely moist cake, it also wasn't super strong, so I'm not sure how well it would've held up with more than just the two layers or with heavy fondant decorations. I may need to alter the recipe if I ever need to accommodate those situations.

This was the first time I used all shortening in my buttercream frosting. I did add some butter flavored extract to it though, and it tasted fantastic! However, I may have used just a bit too much powdered sugar because the frosting was looking a little dry when I was piping the rosettes.

I won't lie, making the rosettes on a cake was a little harder than on a cupcake, because you have to try to make them all the same size and it's not like you can use the edges of the cake as a guide the way you do for a cupcake. I think it'll get easier the more I do it though.

I had just bought those blue pearl candies that morning at the grocery store when I went to buy more shortening. They're actually Sixlets, and they were in the decorating section at Target (in the baking isle near the shortening, hence why I saw them). They were the perfect color and I thought they would fit in really well with the rosettes.

After I saw how the pearl candies looked on the cake, that's actually what made me decide to make the white buttercream beads to complement that look on the sides of the cake.

The border around the bottom is a simple shell border, which I've don't before, but this time I used a much larger star tip (1M, the same as the one for rosettes). I like the way that turned out, and I didn't think it was too much of a distraction from the rosettes which were the focal point.

My parents (and everyone else who got to try a piece) loved it, they all had multiple slices! Even my mom, who doesn't eat a whole lot of dessert, said it was delicious. I think that's a sign of success! :)

Anniversary cake, with rosettes and pearls