Your cakes, let me decorate them.

I had a totally rockin' time at cake-decorating class this week. Does anyone need a cake for an upcoming wedding? Birthday? Christening? Bar mitzvah? If so, I've got you covered. (That is, if you want to be covered in fondant. Because I can do that. Oh, yes. I can.)

Below, find a series of photos from my cake-decorating adventures.

This is most of what I did on day one, which was much akin to working in a sweatshop. Behold, an unfinished carnation, lots of holly berries, and four rose bases.


My workspace. See all those specialized tools? I must buy them now. MUST.


Here's a two-layer carnation (with two layers of petals on, and a third yet to come) which I unfortunately dropped and smooshed a little bit. Shhh.


Cutting out carnation petals.


Carnation petals after they've been abused by the Dresden veining tool (one of the tools I must now possess).


Two one-layer carnations and one (smooshed) two-layer carnation.


My first rose in progress, with just one layer of petals.


Two one-layer roses.


Rose petals cut from gum paste, before they've been ruffled to make them more lifelike.


Placing ruffled petals around a rose base.


My first finished two-layer rose.


Here's my fondant-covered styrofoam cake form. I totally rock the rolled fondant. Aw, yeah.



Gum-paste flowers = easy. Gum-paste leaves = hard. And ugly. But they got prettier the next day, with help from green color dust and a high-gloss glaze.



My four roses, three with two layers and one with three layers. I'm quite pleased with them, if I do say so myself.


A whole mess of (ugly) leaves drying on foil.


Finishing the flowers with a touch of color.


I was skeptical about the ribbons, but they do add a really nice touch to the cake.


My completed flower bouquet. Seriously, would you even know they're not real? The answer is no. No, you wouldn't know.


And that's my finished cake. I bailed on a lot of the finishing ornamentation because I suuuuuuck at piping. Royal icing is not my friend. But I will practice, and with time, I will conquer. Royal icing, I'm not done with you.

Thanks for all of your wonderful birthday wishes. I had a great day. Special thanks to Heather for reminding me that my hair has always been bad -- it's not a recent phenomenon.