Fresh from my fiasco at decorating the birthday cake I thought I had better start to practise. The one thing I am not short of is tools as I have been given lots of things to play with. The problem being that I am not at all sure what they all are or how I'm meant to use them.

 

Anyway, first things first. I would ice a 'cake' using the polystyrene mock up. Having made plenty of pastry rolling out and covering the cake was a doddle and I had quite a happy time smoothing it with the smoothing tool. I suspected that things would not be quite so easy using a real cake with butter icing on the top but was well satisfied with my first attempt.

 

Flush with success I decided to decorate it. Cutting out leaves was no problem at all but then I came to creating flowers. I glanced through the books for inspiration but all the flowers looked very complicated and as I was only practising I wanted to use the paste I had previously coloured for the class so was a bit restricted. I had a go with one or two stencils in my kit but they were all tiny things. Then I had a go with some 5 petal stencils. Press too hard and the sugar paste sticks inside the stencil with no way of getting it out still resembling petals. Don't use enough pressure and you can't peel the surrounding paste away.

 

Well sorting that out took a bit of time. In the end I found a stencil which resembled a tart cutter (but shaped like a flower). I got on much better with this and as it came with instructions could follow the steps. The bud in the centre should be made in advance and left to dry out - but hey-ho - I was only practising! There's a very good reason for this as I found out because when you start to assemble the petals around it the soft centre goes all squashy and slides up round the hook of the wire which is holding it. Anyway an hour or so after starting I had made a rose which looked quite passable (see photo) and on that note decided to call it a night.

 

The next evening I thought I would perfect my newly acquired skill and make some more roses, but being a thrifty sort of person I used some sugar paste which my daughter had given me. This was much softer than the one I had used the night before because there was no marzipan in it so the petals of the roses ende up being a bit indistinct and squashed together. Ah well! I'll have another go another night.