American Baker in Germany

Making roses out of buttercream is a skill all cake decorators should have. This is how I make them. First, I pipe a dollop on a square of parchment paper. Why do I do this? It creates a base for the rose so it's not too light and has a bit more substance to pick up and place on the cake.  Then, using a petal tip with the thin side pointing up and slightly tilted toward the center, pipe a cone shape.  Then pipe petals by creating an arch with the thin side of the tip pointing up.  Pipe overlapping petals around the cone.  Then keep piping  more petals around the center cone.  Try to start the next petal near the center of the previous petal.  As you get farther out, you can flare out the petals slightly.  I have to say, I was really happy with the result.  Buttercream flowers don't look as realistic as fondant flowers, but they go a lot faster.  And, let's be honest, they're really pretty.  You ...

This cake came about because a Harry Potter fan found out about the Hogwarts cake I made for my daughter. He wanted a Harry Potter Cake for his tenth birthday. With Hogwarts on it. Strawberry cake. So, I wanted to put the boy's name on the cake in the Harry Potter script. I found an image online of the script I wanted and I needed a few size options, so I changed the zoom of the script and traced the letters onto a piece of paper in three different sizes.  I also traced an image of Hogwarts that was relatively similar heights. Many of the images has the left side significantly higher than the right. I wanted to wrap the silhouette around the cake.  Then I cut out the letters of Quentin's name. I chose the smallest one because it seemed to fit best on the size of cake with the design I wanted.  I know there's only one N, but I cut out two. I stuck the light cut outs onto some orange fondant with a tiny bit of water, which ended up being a bad idea because they w...