Little Office

I spent this morning working in the little house in the backyard (which sounds like something Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote in grade school). It's a little too warm right now, but it's a nice little place to work, and I got things done. Go, Team Me!

And It's Cake Time Again!

daintycake
Originally uploaded by madrobins

Tonight it was back to cake again. Over the weekend I had to make a batch of Royal icing (essentially it's semi-liquid meringue) and make a gazillion lace points--the little white gizmos that stand upright--and a gazillion tiny rosebuds. Today I made a cake and frosted it in lavender buttercream. Then I brought the wrong kind of frosting to class (Royal icing instead of buttercream) which didn't in the end, appear to have mattered.

So this evening we learned cornelli icing. That's the little squiggly stuff all over the top and sides. Ideally, if you do it right, it's just one long white squiggle that covers the sides and most of the top and ends up at the same place you started. Ideally. The Royal icing doesn't hold its shape as well as the buttercream; next time I'll use a smaller tip and buttercream and maybe I'll be able to do the one-long-line deal.

ladycake2
Originally uploaded by madrobins

I let my cornelli scallops come down a little too far on the sides, so the base of the cake is a bit, um, erratic. Still, from this view you can see the little lace points sticking up in the air. And don't the rosebuds look cute? I brought 25+ rosebuds, and 35 lace points to class--and managed to use most of the rosebuds, but only half of the lace points (the rest broke as I was liberating them from the cellophane on which I'd made them. Broken lace points=yum).

It's very dainty, isn't it? One might almost say demure.