Royal Flowers

One of my all time favorite cakes was my final project for my cake course at the Chocolate Duck in Farmingdale, NY.   This basketful of flowers showed off my new skills of flower making.

For about two weeks prior to our final class I made flowers using royal icing... roses (in peach, red-orange, and yellow), daisies, daffodils, orange gerber daisies and red and white carnations on wax paper using a flower nail. 

In class I created a yellow cake with raspberry filling and a buttercream icing.  I used my mom's buttercream recipe, which I will always claim is one of the best homemade butter-creams I have ever had.   I iced the cake with a basket weave technique.  Then using my icing as glue, carefully added the flowers to the top of the basket.   Then using green tinted icing I added leaves to fill in the gaps and give it the feeling of real flowers.

Not bad for an amateur, right?   I highly recommend taking a class in cake decorating.