Piping Dogwood Flowers in Royal Icing

I love dogwood flowers, perhaps because they aren't easy to come by. There's a dogwood tree in my yard that's almost half a century old that started to produce blooms only a few years ago! Dogwood flowers are easy to make using gum paste; all sorts of cutters and impression mats are available. However, I really wanted to try to figure out how to pipe them with royal icing; I definitely plan to incorporate them next time I make a stump cake. I think I came up with a pretty accurate representation of them. Here's the setup; a Styrofoam block (to act as a third hand for holding the flower nail), a non-toxic glue stick, dark pink Color Dust, a small brush, parchment paper squares, a flower nail, a dusting pouch filled with a 50/50 mix of powdered sugar and cornstarch, 3" flower forming cups, a pastry bag filled with royal icing and fitted with a Wilton #101 rose tip, and a pastry bag filled with yellow royal icing and fitted with the Wilton #233 tip:

Dab some glue on the flower nail and stick down a parchment paper square. 

 Holding the rose tip almost flat against the surface with the narrow end of the tip pointing outward and the wide end in the center, pipe a long heart shape all the way to the edge of the nail. Keep the pressure pretty steady and firm the whole time. If you somehow wind up with a hole in the middle of this petal, touch one of your fingers to the dusting pouch and tap the icing down around the hole.

 Make the second petal opposite to the first. Attempt to make them somewhat symmetrical; all the petals will be the same size. If a large accumulation occurs in the center, it can be tapped down with your dusted finger.

 Here's the third petal…

 …and the fourth.

 Slide the parchment paper off the nail (breaking the seal with the glue), and place it on the flower forming cup to dry with a subtle concave shape:

 After the flower has had a chance to firm up for a bit, pipe the yellow center with Tip #233. Hold the tip just above the center and squeeze out a center consisting of very short strands; squeeze, stop the pressure, lift the tip away. Move the tip over the width of one of the strands, and squeeze out a second set.

 This way the center won't be a perfectly spaced, unnatural looking cluster of dots.

 When the petals have dried completely, dust the edges with the pink dust. As you dust each petal, you can shake off the excess away from the rest of the flower.

 Here are all four petals, dusted. Incidentally, this step is optional; the flowers in my yard don't have pink edges. I like how the dogwood flower turned out; it even has the lines running the length of the petals. I plan to figure out how to make more flowers that aren't based on something I learned in a Wilton class soon!

Royal Icing Bird Nests with Eggs

If you need an absolutely adorable cupcake topper or cake decoration, look no further. In fact, I think these sweet little bird nests could be served straight up. Make a batch of royal icing and get set up with a piece of parchment paper taped to a cookie sheet:

Drop a multi-hole tip like the Ateco #234 into a piping bag (Wilton makes a similarly-numbered tip). This is a larger version of the #233, which is useful for piping small-scale grass, fur, hair, flower centers, etc. I wouldn't bother using a coupler for this project:

Load the bag with some brown royal icing. I used AmeriColor Soft Gel Paste in Chocolate Brown:

Set out jelly beans or small malted eggs in groups of three for each nest. No point in fumbling for the right color or sifting out the mutant ones while your icing is drying.

Holding the bag perpendicular to the surface, pipe a circle about 1.5" across. Finish it by spiraling in toward the center. I gave it a little extra "squish" in the center to hold the "eggs" in place:

Nestle the three eggs into the center. You could easily color-coordinate them for some event other than Easter. Being Irish, I'm always looking for new ways to use these colors:

I'd better get started on some royal icing birds to sit on these…

Shaggy Mums or "Pompom Flowers"

I recently made a baseball-themed birthday cake for a friend's boyfriend (a big SF Giants fan). I wanted to pipe a few flowers on it, but nothing traditional like a rose. The shaggy mum came to mind; it's one of the first flowers you learn in the Wilton Method classes, and looks a lot like a cheerleader's pompom. Even in the book handed out in class, the directions aren't very thorough, so I thought I'd show you how I make them. 

They can be piped directly on a cupcake, but I like to pipe them onto a Nilla Wafer and then place them in a more precise fashion. I like to use the Wilton Ready-To-Use Decorator Icing, because of its stiff consistency. I colored it using AmeriColor Soft Gel Paste Food Color in Orange. The piping bag is loaded with Wilton tip # 233 (which is frequently used for fur, hair, and grass). Start by squeezing out a random blob onto one of the Nilla Wafers:

Smooth it out evenly with an offset spatula. Push it as close to the edge as possible, while allowing yourself some icing-free edge to hold onto. The icing doesn't need to be thick; it just needs to mask the color of the cookie.

Hold the bag perpendicular to the cookie, with the tip just above the surface of the icing. Squeeze firmly, allow the icing to anchor itself, pull upwards while squeezing for about 1/3", then stop pressure and pull the bag away at the same angle. Do this all over the iced surface of the cookie, with each "squeeze" touching its neighbors. 

Here's more or less how it should look when you're finished. Add a few squeezes to the back of the cookie…

…then place it on the cake. Use the edges to gently press it down.

You may need to carefully pipe a few more squeezes around the edges so it doesn't look quite so "placed."

Leave it as is if you want it to look like a cheerleader's pompom, or tuck a tip close to the edge and pipe a few leaves (I used the Wilton tip #352). Obviously, this flower can be made in any imaginable color, and would be ideal for any sporting event. Cheers!

Piping Grass for Football Cupcakes

Just in time for Super Bowl Sunday: how to make grass out of icing! This is the last step in making football-themed cupcakes featuring chocolate footballs and royal icing goal posts. Fortunately, piping grass is easy with the Wilton tip #233:

 

This multi-hole tip is good for piping fur, hair, birds' nests, hay, yarn, some flower centers (like the daisy), and, as previously mentioned, grass. Start to cultivate your turf by laying down a thin layer of green icing; I used an offset spatula for this (the same one I used to fill the bag; how resourceful!):

Hold the tip perpendicular to the cake, just above the surface. Get used to doing these three steps rapidly and repetitively: squeeze, stop, pull away. When you squeeze, draw the tip up just a few millimeters for consistent, freshly-cropped grass. When it's the right length for you, stop the pressure and pull the tip away at the same perpendicular angle you piped at. If the grass stretches out, falls over, etc., smooth it out and pipe over it. Once you get a feel for piping grass you'll be doing it rapid-fire. 

Don't let the "turf" below show in between your clusters of grass; pipe them as close together as possible…

 …until the top is covered. If you have a couple of sugar googly eyes handy, now would be a great time to abandon the football theme and make a Muppet.

Have you found other uses for Tip #233? I want to hear about them!