First Attempt at Roses

Joe and I didn't have any plans for the 4th of July, so I decided to decorate yet another cake. I was exhausted by the end! The night before I baked a white cake from scratch using a recipe I love. I must not have baked it long enough, because if fell apart. Boo and such a waste of butter. The next morning I made yet another cake, but this time from a box.

I think I tried to "learn" too many new things in one setting yesterday. I wanted to make my shell borders two toned--red and blue for the holiday. Something like such from Le Petit Pieroti's Blog. Well, that involves parchment bags. I don't know why, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to fold those darn bags. I'm sure you tube has a video, but I was too impatient to look for it...

After resigning to the fact that my shell border wasn't going to be two tone, I decided to give roses a try. Even though I added meringue powder to the icing, I think my icing still wasn't quite stiff enough because they kept tilting to one side as I turned the pin. I bet I attempted at least 20 roses to get the three I finally used, which still are wilting. I know, practice, practice, practice.

I'm also starting to think the buttercream icing is a little too sweet for my liking. If you're from Baltimore, it reminds me of Woodlea's icing. Don't get me wrong, I love Woodlea's icing, since I made three cakes this week, I'm sugared out. I'll look into another recipe that's not so sweet for icing the cake at least.