The baby is here! Click
for pictures of Greta, born on July 8,
1998!
Recently, my husband purchased a digital camera. We have been having fun
taking pictures with it so we could get images up on the web and friends
(and anyone else interested) could see the progress of my various hobbies.
One of my long time interests is sewing, both clothing making and
embroidery. Cross stitch takes a very long time to do and progress is
quite slow, but after a week of serious effort, I might get another square
inch or two done, just enough to see a little change. Periodically, I'll
have updated photos to show the changes. The current project is Rapunzel,
which I started January 16, 1997.
CAKE DECORATING
A very new hobby is cake decorating. A friend of mine just had a 60th
birthday party. I agreed to make the cake. When I thought about the fact
that some 40 people were expected at the party and that I didn't know how
The birthday party was May 10, 1997.
CAKE TALK:
Cake pan: 13" x 9"
Click on birthday cake to see larger version.
Edgings and message:
The bottom was edged with tip 21 shells. For every other shell, I piped
two little buttercream green leaves with tip 67. Inserted between each
set of leaves was a light pink royal icing sweet pea made with tip 104 a
few days prior. These made a very pretty border. On the top right of the cake, I piped HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETER in light blue icing with tip 2. On the left I put a floral spray I copied right out of Wilton's final project for their class I decorating course. This wasn't a time to experiment!
Floral spray
The spray consisted of three stems of flowers and leaves "gathered" with a bow. Stems were done in the same green buttercream icing and arched more or less like this: ( . Coming off the stems to the left and right were little leaves and pink sweet peas
in royal icing. After they had air dried more than a day, I attached
each sweet pea with a dot of icing to waxed paper so it wouldn't shift
while I piped a calyx in tip 2. After this set a moment, I transferred
the unit to the floral spray. This was probably not the ideal way to do
the calyx, but never having done this on a cake before, I was concerned
about piping this right onto the cake and making a mistake! After getting
the leaves and sweet peas in place, I placed three pink royal icing roses
made previously. They were in a triangular formation. They were too big!
Fortunately, I'd also made some slightly smaller white roses in royal
icing and decided to use one white rose for the top flower and two pink
roses underneath. They were still larger than optimal, but would have to
do at that late hour. The stems looked too short after placing the
flowers, so I added to them. Then I piped leaves around the roses and
finally a blue bow with tip 104. Bow The blue bow was the only blue
item I needed in medium consistency icing. What I had in my bag was thin
consistency blue icing used for lettering. It was not ideal to do the bow
in thin icing, but because of the time, I did, anyway. The cake was
comple
tely done twenty minutes before the party was due to start. We actually arrived at the party an hour after it started. (I didn't want to leave my tips, bags and couplers unwashed, plus had to get myself ready!)
HOW THE CAKE ARRIVED AND HOW IT WAS RECEIVED
After a somewhat harrowing ride through Boston's bumpy streets, the cake
arrived at the party with only one leaf slightly smooshed from the waxed
paper I'd lightly set over the cake after putting the cake (which was on a
foil covered cake board) into a box. For the first part of the party, we
had the cake on a side table very near the angled table of food. People
could see it, but were unlikely to bump into it. The birthday boy, Peter,
was "thrilled" with the cake. This is very high praise, indeed, from him!
Quite a few people came in to see the cake. When it was time for the cake
to be eaten, a big salad bowl was taken off of the end of the buffet table
so I could have room for the cake. Before moving the cake to the table, I
had placed 7 candleson the cake just because it looked like a good amount,
but when the birthday boy, and several other people, wanted to know why I
picked that number, I said it was six (one for each decade) and "one to
grow on." It seemed like a better reason that "that's what looked good."
I put the candles around the top right corner. The cake faced out towards
the rest of the room where most people stood. The birthday boy was mainly
behind the cake (at an angle). A man with a lighter and I, with my match,
lit the candles. Peter made several silent wishes--we all got a laugh
imagining what they were--and blew out the candles. Then Peter took the
candles out and started slicing up the layer cake in little "wedding cake
size" pieces, each about 2" by 3/4", plus two layers high. Quite a few
people were interested that I'd made the cake and were particularly
fascinated by the flowers. The royal icing flowers got eaten! One
man, Ed, wanted to know about the roses. I explained what they were and
and that, though edible, he probably wouldn't want to eat them. Peter,
whose father was a baker and who has also made cakes, totally frosted in
royal icing, concurred. Ed tookthe white flower and put it in his mouth.
He sucked on it at first and finally started crunching down on it. I said
"I warned you!" During the course of the evening, all but two of the some
two dozen royal icing sweet peas were eaten. Every single slice and
almost every crumb were devoured with many compliments all night. It was
the only dessert there, so was doubly singled out. Not only did many
people tell me how much they liked the cake, but to my surprise, many
thanked me, too! Best of all was
how much the birthday boy liked his cake. I'd hoped this cake would make him feel he'd had a special cake for his big birthday and from all I could tell, it succeeded.
My construction engineer is my webmaster-husband without whom I wouldn't
have even this. If you want to see how good he can be at this, take a
look at Boston Online.
The "Wicked
Good Guide
to Boston English" part of his site is particularly popular.
Welcome to my Web page.
to
do a very fancy cake, I decided to invest in more extensive equipment,
books and supplies to see how much I could learn in the two weeks between
the time I agreed to do the cake and the time of the party. You can see
my practice cake (it's still being eaten!) and the birthday cake (click on the picture to see
a larger version).
Making the cake
How the cake was received
Cake links
Tips: 2, 21, 67, 104 (and 10 to make earlier rose bases)
Icings: Royal icing for roses and sweet peas; buttercream for everything else
Basic cake:
The cake consisted of two Betty Crocker very moist devil's food cake mixes baked in succession in a 13" x 9" pan and layered. The cake was frosted
with white buttercream icing made from scratch mixed with Wilton's tub ready-to-use icing, then thinned. I definitely learned that I need a much longer spatula! The top of the cake was edged with white buttercream stars with tip 21.