Cake Decorating Part Deux

Josh and I went piano shopping a few weeks ago, and just as we were nearing our destination, Josh got pulled over. The policeman pulled us over for "expired registration". Oh yeah, we're supposed to do that in June, huh. Josh gives him his license and our registration and the policeman says, "You know this is expired, right?". Lucky for us, that fit-as-a-fiddle policeman only gave us 2 warnings. Nag that I am, I've been trying to convince Josh to get it registered since then. Fast forward.

Saturday I realize I will need to bake a cake and make some frosting for Monday. Sunday comes, and I realize, hey! I have no crisco, so no frosting. Luckily, my Mom was kind and gave me 2 cups of Crisco so I could make my frosting and be prepared for my class. Monday morning strolls around, and I remember I haven't made cakes, and I haven't made frosting. Uh oh. Lucky for me, Josh hasn't started school yet, so he was kind enough to bake my cakes for me. They said we could take 8 cupcakes or an 8-inch round cake. So I took a 9-inch round cake. 1/2 of one. :) I'm not sure how he did it, but Josh managed to bake a couple of beauties. Well, they were beauties until he popped them out of the pan. He burned them. Once again, I was headed to class with a burnt cake. He made a white cake, so it was much more noticeable than the chocolate. Eh, who cares. I think we're pretty much sick of cake at our house anyway.

Josh texted me at work and said he needed to switch cars with me, because he had to take his Dad to drop his car off at the shop. That means, he didn't register the car. So I came home for lunch to switch cars. While I was home, I whipped up a batch of frosting. I started by digging out the biggest bowl we own. Since it was so big, I had to clear a little space on the counter. So I chucked the other half of last Monday's cake. I wiped down the counters and got to mixing. Ya know, Crisco is disgusting. It looks creamy and delcious, but really it's just gross. I was in a bit of a hurry so I didn't have time to add a tiny bit of powdered sugar, then mix; add, mix; add, mix; add, mix; add, mix; etc. So I added, mixed; added, mixed; added mixed. I think I almost burned out the motor on my hand mixer! (Have I ever mentioned how much I want a KitchenAid Mixer?? Have I mentioned my birthday is in 2 days? ;) ). That lard mixed with powdered sugar was not exactly interested in mixing.

I finally got it all mixed in, and seeing how I still had (have...) 4 containers of colored frosting in my fridge, I decided I didn't need to color the frosting. Let me just say, that icing was stiffer than a dead body! I had to add SO much water. I got it to the point where I figured if I thinned it out anymore, it wouldn't qualify as "stiff" and my roses (stiff consistency is a must for those beauties) would look like they had been in the Sun for 7 straight years with no water. Droopy and dead.

I took a chunk of frosting, and thinned it down to "medium". This consistency I actually got down pretty well. Then I took another chunk, and thinned it down to "thin". I iced my cake, and it was SO much easier than last week. I say it's the frosting, but Josh would probably say it was the perfectly round cakes he made. I have to be honest, I've never baked a cake that looked anywhere close to perfect. I think that's the first time he's ever baked a round cake and he nailed it! Anyway... I took the frosting from last week out of the fridge to soften, shoved a leftover taco/burrito thing down my gullet, and ran out the door back to work. Of course, I had to stop at the bank first. I think I prayed the entire 16 minute drive, that I wouldn't get pulled over.

On the way home from work, I realized I was lucky to not have been pulled over in the unregistered car yet, so I stopped at Jiffy Lube, hoping they could register it in a "jiffy". They did pretty well, I'll be honest. There were two cars in line ahead of me, so I asked if they could get me out by 4:50. They agreed, I agreed, so I waited (kinda) patiently and zipped out of there so I could get back to teach my 5:00 p.m. lesson. I was home right at 5:00, but had asked my student to come five minutes late so I could clean up the front room. I didn't tell them that was why though. :D I was getting nervous. It was 5:12 before we started the lesson, and I was super nervous that I wouldn't finish in time to pack the rest of my stuff up before heading out. Lucky for me, it all worked out perfectly, and I was early to my class. I was set up and ran out to buy a tip I didn't have, but needed, for that evening's class.

I sit down. I work up my courage and say to my teacher, "So Rhea, do you live in Rose Park?" She lives on a Street just North of me. She hands me the roll, then looks at my name. "Oh, so are you related to Cliff and Lee?". Yup. I knew it. I can't go anywhere without someone knowing my Dad, or my FIL. I chuckled. She was much nicer to me during class this week. She helped me when I ripped my disposable bag trying to screw the tip to the coupler, she used my bag of icing for demonstrations, she helped me correct my mistakes. I'm pretty sure last week, she had given up all hope for me, so this was a welcome change! Thanks Cliff and Lee!! :D

I filled bags of white icing, practiced the drop flower, piping figures, and shell borders, and I hummed to myself as others complimented me on all my pretty frosting colors and how organized I was. Lol. If only they knew! I sat by the girl who has her professional cake decorator friend bake and ice her cakes. I laughed as she put too much color in her frosting and was constantly licking stuff until it turned her tongue (and braces) a vivid purple. I laughed as Rhea perused the "Wilton" aisle in Michael's finding more stuff that was "extremely useful" for this, that, or the other, and also cost an arm, leg, and half my torso.

Then, we practiced our roses. Oops. That's what I was supposed to practice at home...Since I never mastered (or even correctly accomplished) Step 1 of the rose, Step 2 was nigh unto impossible. You need stiff icing for it to stand up, so I whipped out my fresh batch of stark white stiff frosting. Ummm, yeah. A little too cadaver-like. I couldn't get it to work. Then she told me I had my tip upside down. Okay, I thought that would fix my problem. Then, I wasn't turning my flower nail enough. Then I started it too far back in my hand. Then I turned it too much. Then my icing was so stiff it wouldn't turn as I tried to wrap the second layer of frosting around the "base" of the flower. It cracked and popped, and pretty soon, we were moving on. Then she told us to "practice your roses while you're watching a television show". Ummm??? No. I prefer to read, and you can't read and frost at the same time. It's now Thursday and I still haven't practiced... By the time I finish 2 hours of feeling like a cake-baking/frosting fool, I don't have the energy to try again. I don't want to see crisco frosting again for another 6 days. So I don't practice, and I continue to be a cake-baking/frosting fool in every sense of the phrase.

Having been somewhat successful, or at least extremely awed by "drop flowers", that was what I decided to put on my cake. She told us if we twist the tip, they look more like "plumeria's than stars". So I practiced. First, I twisted too much, then I didn't twist enough, and finally, I twisted JUST RIGHT, and then we moved on. So I scattered cornflower blue drop flower one after the other until my cake was sprinkled with them. Then I remembered that she told us if we put a bunch of drop flowers together, they look like hydrangeas. So I tried that. Until I realized, 1/2 a cake's worth of drop flowers does NOT equal hydrangeas. I tried to fix it by NOT filling in the bottom, just leaving them scattered. Thinking it needed something else, I used my Moss Green frosting (yes, from the week before) to make "vines/leaves/stems/pistons" connecting my drop flowers. Umm, it looked pretty bad, so I picked off about half of the green squiggly hastily made lines.

Knowing I could do a lot more to make it worse, but nothing to make it better (besides eat it all before the teacher could see), I decided to clean up for the night. Rhea came over and stood over top of my cake for about 5 minutes. I think she was trying to figure out what the crap I did to my cake. I sheepishly focused on packing my bag while she stood, brow furrowed, hands behind her back, lips persed, trying to decipher the Picasso-esque drop flower hydrangea disaster.

I said "thank you" and rushed out the door, trying to convince myself I might actually have to practice this week. Wish me luck for next week! So, with nothing left to say, here are the pictures:

Drop Flower Disaster

Close Ups

P.S. The best thing I ever did, was buy those extra 8 couplers. Made my life SO much better! Now if I can only learn how to put a coupler and a tip on the bag without ripping it so piping bursts out the side of the bag.