A Little More Over-piping

I made a little cake for a tasting/ dinner party this past weekend.  It felt good to be decorating again after a bit of a break over the holidays!

Anyway, I might have gotten a little over-excited (as is known to happen).  And my mild obsession with old-school piping and Lambeth method might have reared its little head.

This whole cake is piped with swiss meringue buttercream and finished with little fondant flowers.  The quadruple piped strings on the top sagged a little in transit, but it was in the car for a little while.  In real life, I'd use royal or at least refrigerate longer before traveling.

I tried to come up with my own variant on Lambeth for a bottom border.  It could still use some refining, but I like the vine and leaf organic movement coupled with the more traditional shell and overpiping.

The cake was butter cake with grand marnier syrup, fresh raspberry puree, and vanilla swiss meringue buttercream.  It was super tasty!

Hope you enjoy!

I do have many projects in the works for this year, but I am also very busy trying to finish my PhD by May.  So forgive me if my posts are a little spotty... ;) After I graduate, I've promised myself till the end of 2012 to a) relax and b) pursue cake and sugar endeavors!  That's right, I'm gonna do some investigating...

Best to you all!

Kickin' it Old School

This weekend I went to a dinner party and did a tasting for a wedding cake.  God forbid any of my cakes should be under-dressed (they might take after me a little), I decided it was a good opportunity to practice some old school overpiping.

This cake is a lemon butter cake with a framboise flavor splash, a fresh raspberry puree, and a light lemon swiss meringue buttercream.  With some minor adjustments, I'll be using these flavors for a wedding cake in a couple of weeks.

All the piping was done in the swiss meringue buttercream as well using PME tips 2,3 (round) and 6 (star).  The top border was done with 6 as a base, followed by 3, followed by 2. I have this set of 20 PME supatubes-- they are seamless and I love them for detailed piping: PME 20 Piece Icing Tube Boxed Set.  The cake was a big hit at the dinner party!

I also made a smaller version as a tasting cake:

I'm just fascinated by old school piping.  I'm dying to take a Lambeth class with Kathleen Lange-- maybe next summer! :)

More cakes in the works...