I was both nervous and excited to make a tiered cake! It is very intimidating! But it really is not as hard as one would think, at least for my tiny 2 tier cake.
Due to the complexity of the work this week (and outside factors/stresses that had nothing to do with the cake) I did not take as many pictures as I would've wanted. I stacked my cakes and began decorating before taking many pics. Sorry!!! I feel horrible, but like I said it was just not my week.
I began by baking two 9inch round cakes, and two 5inch rounds (that I actually cut out of a 13x9 cake pan). I filled them with ganache, crumb coated, and frosted them.
I stacked them by placing 4 cut-off dowels under the area I was stacking my 5in round. After sprinkling a little dehydrated coconut between the layers, and placing the 5inch cake on a foil covered cardboard (I could only find a 6inch board, so I had to make sure my frosting covered up the edges so they didn't show), I placed the smaller cake on top. To help secure the cake I sharpened two dowels and hammered (yes, with an actual hammer!) them all the way through both layers of cake/cardboard. This really helps make sure the cake does not shift in transport.
After they got stacked, we have free reign to do whatever designs we wanted for our class final. One of my favorite design techniques is the Corneille Lace so I had fun and played around with it.
I decided to use a large, dark purple ruffle as a border to help cover the cardboard. And even though it looks kind of blue in the picture it was a awesome royal blue color.
I had a lot of left over flowers from my projects a week or so ago. So I decided to turn this into a Cascading Flower cake! I have been obsessed with them lately and thought this was a good opportunity to learn how to make that work well (with great instruction from my teacher!!!)
I started by figuring out exactly where I wanted the flowers placed. Using a 'S' shape to help them look more natural as the fall down the side, I was able to find flowers that worked and fit onto the cake well. I also placed a big glob of green frosting on the top of the cake and stacked some of my buttercream roses.
After getting the bulk of the flowers on, my teacher helped me make it more natural looking by continuing the flowers onto the border and adding leaves in a few select places.
I think it looks great! The colors are not really what I would use for a wedding cake but this was more inspired by my daughter than a wedding. Maybe it's a classy birthday cake or something. I don't know but this week I was more focused on the techniques used than the styling of the cake. Using my last class as a opportunity to get as much knowledge out of my teacher as possible :)
