Roses are...orange

...violets are blue, I defrosted cupcakes and redecorated them for you!

Today was the last day of my beginner cake decorating class. As we were away all weekend biking our butts off at the Courage Classic I had zero time to bake or make frosting. Thus...I bought store made cupcakes and frosting. Unfortunately they didn't have any unfrosted cupcakes available, so I had to start off by defrosting them.

This is what they looked like leaving the store, cute, but not cute enough 

We learned how to make roses today and we also learned this really cool technique called "striping the bag" where you put a stripe of coloring gel in the bag and then put your frosting in (careful not to disturb your line) and then when it comes out, there's a stripe in whatever design you make.

To make "Ribbon roses" you start with two bags of stiff consistency icing. You use one for your base which you'll make in a pyramid shape with Wilton tip 12. The second bag (the one where I used the striping technique) has Wilton tip 104 and it's used to create the petals of the rose. We made the roses on this little platform thing (gosh I can't think of the name of it) but you're able to spin it around as you squeeze your icing bag making it easier to make flowers (as opposed to moving your hand around). I made an orange striped bag for my rose petals and used plain white icing for the base. My roses definitely improved with practice.

Attempt 1

2- got a bit morphed

3-Good, but needs a tighter center (don't we all!)

4- getting the hang of it!

5

6- I love that orange stripe effect!

After creating the roses on wax paper squares using the flower pedestal things we used little scissors to move them. Bringing the blades of the scissors together under the rose we'd scoop part way underneath the flower, lift it, and then using a spatula, push it onto the cake/cupcake we were working on. For the leaves I used a thin consistency icing colored green with tip 352. The finished products looked something like this...





I feel like I could have put them back on the shelf at safeway!

Thanks for reading! Happy Eating!

Chocolate Orange Sensation

For the last 3 Tuesdays I have been taking a beginner cake decorating class. While I figure out how to get all of the pictures off my phone from the first two lessons, here's what went down today!

For lesson three we needed to make at least 6 cupcakes and bring them to class along with optional cupcake filling and about 5 cups of icing. This is the first week that I've made my usual homemade icing from the recipe in "The Bakers Field Guide to Cupcakes". Before I was using store bought Wilton icing, but it's WAY to sweet for my tastes and I just about overdosed on the smell of sugar in last weeks class.

I found online this week a recipe for a chocolate orange cupcake- http://www.cupcake-recipes.com/choc-orange-cupcakes/. Save yourself the trouble, don't try to follow this cupcake recipe and convert the measurements and what-not. I tried and failed, they came out looking all sad and deflated. I did use the filling recipe though and that turned out nicely.

SO! These cupcakes are...

-Bakers Field Guide to Cupcakes chocolate cupcake recipe (sub orange extract for vanilla extract)
-Filling from weird recipe above
-Chocolate Ganache recipe from BFG
-2X Confectioners Sugar frosting from BFG

Rosette technique (orange) with yellow centers and yellow stars trailing. (If you'd like to know the sizes of icing tips i used I can add that info). White base and colors all from confectioners sugar recipe. Chocolate orange cupcake underneath filled with orange buttercream icing. 

Chocolate orange cupcake filled with orange buttercream and iced with cooled chocolate ganache. I let the Ganache sit out at room temperature overnight. To use the ganache like this it should be cooled overnight at room temperature or put in the fridge. I had to warm it with  my hands in the icing bag to make it pliable enough but it worked out nicely. Decorated with yellow flowers and orange centers with orange swirling dots. Again, if you want the icing tip #'s I can look them up.

Totally loving cake class and I can't wait to keep practicing! : D