Royal Icing Wild Prairie Rose

The wild prairie rose, Iowa's state flower since 1897, is found throughout the state, where it blooms from June through late summer. It comes in many shades of pink; I thought this would be a good excuse to try Fuchsia Soft Gel Paste by AmeriColor; it has a raspberry sherbet quality. You'll also need yellow stiff consistency royal icing, petal tip #104, round tip #2, parchment paper squares, a glue stick, a flower nail, a Styrofoam brick to rest the nail in, and a dusting pouch filled with a 50/50 mix of cornstarch and powdered sugar. You may find using a primrose template decal on the nail will help keep your petals equal in size. Start by sticking a parchment square to the nail with a dab from the glue stick. 

 Using the #104 petal tip with the wide side in the middle of the nail, almost flat on the surface, and the narrow side facing outward and angled slightly upward, pipe a heart-shaped petal. Squeeze slowly while moving your hand in a motion similar to a "3" lying with the curves up. Stop pressure and pull the tip away towards yourself when you reach the end of the shape.

 Pipe another petal, overlapping the first one slightly.

 You don't need to pipe the petals overlapping one after the other. I piped one opposite the first two just to mix things up…

 …and then the fourth…

 …and the fifth. Touch a fingertip to the dusting pouch and gently tap the center flat.

 Use the #2 tip to pipe a cluster of yellow stand-up dots for stamens. Hold the tip against the surface, squeeze while pulling the tip up and away for about 1/4", then stop pressure and pull the tip away. With their heart-shaped petals, wild prairies roses would be cute on a Valentine's Day dessert.

Hidden Mickeys on a Valentine's Cake

My friend Norma is an easy one to make a birthday cake for: she loves All Things Disney and she was born on Valentine's Day! Super easy to come up with a theme for, but how many concepts can anyone fit on a cake before it just becomes cluttered? I knew I wanted to represent her love of Disney (I just found out today she actually used to work alongside Walt himself!), but I didn't want to present too literal an interpretation of Mickey or any other overdone Disney iconography. Ever since learning of "Hidden Mickeys" I've been fascinated by the concept; Wikipedia describes them as "…a representation of Mickey Mouse that has been inserted subtly into the design of a ride, attraction, or other location in a Disney theme park or elsewhere on Disney properties…a formation of three circles that may be perceived as the silhouette of the head and ears of Mickey Mouse." The only perfectly circular flower I could think of was Wilton's "Ribbon Rose," which is introduced during Course 1: Decorating Basics. You can find the instructions to make it here. I changed nothing, except for the step that involves piping petals immediately after piping the base. I used royal icing, and allowed the bases to dry for about twenty minutes first (for reasons illustrated in my earlier post, The Wilton Rose: A Variation). I used the small round tip #8 and petal tip #101 for the small ribbon roses, and tips #12 and #104 for the larger roses. Here's the cake before I put anything on it, except for the vanilla buttercream frosting from Baking with the Cake Boss by Buddy Valastro. 

I used two 8" heart pans; one box of cake mix fit into them perfectly (if a bit deeply; they took a long time to bake). I made all the roses, drop flowers, and hearts ahead of time and stuck them all on with royal icing. 

I really wanted to pipe drop strings, but I don't want to get into a rut. I gave these hearts a try; there's just something so old school about them! You can find this design (and dozens more of this ilk) in the 1986 book, Wilton Uses of Decoration Tips (available as a reprint). This book provides a great tip: lightly make an imprint with a heart-shaped cookie cutter in the buttercream before piping. 

One final note: as I'm sure you're aware, an increasing number of public schools are no longer being required to teach cursive. Granted, the sentiment on this cake was the first time I'd had to think about writing in cursive in forever, but what would I have done otherwise; attempted to write in Helvetica? Schools should continue to teach cursive, if for no other reason than a cake decorator's bag of tricks would be a little lighter without it. The End. Happy Valentine's Day!

PB&J for Valentine's Day

You're probably wondering what making sandwiches could possibly have to do with cake decorating (and I wouldn't blame you at all). 

The thing is, cookie cutters can be used to cut shapes out of everything from fondant to cheese, and every single time I make sandwiches I reach for one or both of these spatulas from my cake decorating gear: the small tapered spatula and the small offset spatula.

The bread I prefer to use is Sara Lee Soft & Smooth Whole Grain White Bread. It actually has a texture that's more like cake than bread; it doesn't have huge air bubbles that the jam will seep through, it cuts cleanly without much shredding, and it actually tastes pretty good. I think it's from the same planet as Sara Lee's pound cake.

This piece cut out extremely cleanly:

As with cookies, cut your first shape out as close to the edge as possible; you might have enough room to cut out another smaller shape:

The next piece didn't cut out quite as nicely; this is what I mean by "shredding." 

Just pinch those excess crumbs off against the cutter; be ready to clean the counter afterwards.

I prefer jam over jelly; it's much more maneuverable. I start by using the offset spatula to lay down a smear…

…and then I use the tapered spatula to push the jam to the outer edges (the "detail work"):

I wipe off the spatulas on the cutout that's about to be peanut buttered:

And I repeat the whole process on that piece:

That tapered spatula works great for making the tiny sandwiches; you won't need the other spatula at all:

Afterward, I always wash the cutters and dry them immediately. I don't put them back in their box until they've sat out for a while in the drying rack. Certain cutters can rust, which is something I have yet to encounter because I try to treat my cutters well (most of them have been in my family for generations; I'll bet you have a few like that, huh?). If they do start showing their age, they can be spruced up with silver polish. 

From the perspective of kids, the other side benefit to this whole process is they win the battle of having the crusts cut off their bread. Toss the scraps to the birds, and everyone's happy! 

Piping Hearts with Tip #8

You may recall, I'm a big fan of piping hearts with Tip #353, which pretty much pipes hearts and nothing else. However, that tip is a bit hard to find and I think it's a good idea to know how to pipe hearts with a round tip, which you can find anywhere. I wanted to make some tiny hearts to trim the stacked cake I made in the Wilton Tall Cakes class, so here's what I came up with. First, tape a sheet of parchment paper to a cookie sheet. Then, load a pastry bag with a #8 tip (or larger or smaller, depending on your project) and a healthy dose of royal icing (this color, by the way, is Electric Pink by AmeriColor). Start each heart by piping a ball at slightly less than a perpendicular angle to the cookie sheet with the tip just above the sheet:

Once you've piped a ball, increase the angle, decrease the pressure, and pull out a tail:

Repeat the process, coming at the heart from the other side:

Keep your dusting pouch full of powdered sugar and cornstarch handy. Touch your fingers to it if need be to pinch the "tails" into a more defined heart-shape.

You might also want to tap the center of the heart so the divot between the two piped halves is less defined:

Allow the hearts to dry for a few hours. Remove them from the parchment paper either with an offset spatula or by peeling the paper away from them (or a combination of both).

Use them to decorate anything. I used them to break up all the white icing on this cake with a shot of color and shape (I piped beads of royal icing on their backs to "glue" them in place). Now if only I could figure out how to write tiny little sayings on them…