American Baker in Germany

 This cake was for my daughter's eleventh birthday and everything was requested by her. This is a 6-inch red velvet cake without food coloring and cream cheese frosting. I frosted the cake and cleaned up the cake board. I used a fondant press form to make my daughter's name, Sabrina. Then I mixed edible gold dust with alcohol and painted the name gold. I placed it on the cake as centered as I could. Then I colored the cream cheese frosting red, dark red and green. The two reds are in piping bags with a petal tip and the green with a leaf tip. Then I piped some buttercream roses and placed them around the cake. I also switched colors and made more roses. Then I piped some leaves to cover up some messy spots and fill in the final gaps. I love how this cake turned out. Sabrina was so excited. She said it was exactly what she wanted. Happy birthday, Sabrina. Watch us make this pretty little cake on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/yvNV2eoyA-0 Schaut zu wie wir diese schön...

Even though I already made a Mother's Day cake this year, I decided I needed another. This time, a sheet cake for Mother's Day. This design and color choices would be something my own mother would appreciate. She's a big fan of roses, so I wanted to make some for this cake. I started out coloring some buttercream a deep red. I added some red and purple food coloring to it, but discovered the purple didn't darken it so much as muted it, so I added a drop of blue instead.  The red will deepen a bit more before I get to piping.  I frosted my sheet cake with white frosting.  I also made some green with a small amount of holly green food coloring.  I also got out a few piping tips. A petal tip, a medium star tip, a leaf tip and not pictured here, I also used a small round tip.  I put deep red buttercream in piping bags with the petal tip and the small round tip, white buttercream with the star tip and green buttercream with the leaf tip.  I s...

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 ...