Thursday, March 7, 2013

Lattice and Lace

This week was our biggest, hardest cake to date but the time and effort payed off because it is also my favorite cake I have ever made!

I started out making two boxed cake mixes (yea, cheating. But since my class is more about decorating I let myself cut this little corner) and that produced 2-9in cakes and a dozen mini-cupcakes. I didn't need the cupcakes, so I frosted them with a light green buttercream and topped them off with a few extra flowers I had made (


I filled my cakes with my favorite ganache (2:1, choc:cream) and stacked them.


Using some thinned down buttercream frosting I created a crumb coat and allowed it to dry.


After it had set up (just at room temperature) I put on my frosting and smoothed it out with my large offset spatula.
 

Thanks to a handy little garland marking tool, I was able to seperate my cake into 8 even areas. I applied a lattice pattern on the sides of the cake, using the marks from the garland tool as a guide for starting and stopping my lines.


I applied the Corneille Lace pattern to the scallops on the top of the cake. (I had never used this technique before but after working on it for a while, it's one of my favorite patterns for a cake. Simple but elegant, and can be made in an size to give it a very different feel)


To help give the illusions of scallops, I made a very small star border around my lattice work (cleaning up all those messy edges I didn't bother cleaning up).


Wanting the top to look a little more elegant, I used a simple, small pearl border around the Corneille Lace.


Final touches to my cake included a larger, yellow shell border around the bottom of the cake (helping to cover up my very messy frosting job) and a few simple (pre-made) wild roses and drop flowers. I chose to make them in purple, because it really popped with the yellow and white frosting.



This is by far my favorite cake I've made. It's simple, elegant, and fun. It would work wonderfully as inspiration for a larger wedding cake, or even a nice birthday party, or a summer picnic.


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