Ooohhh... competition.
I always start out with a humble heart thinking this will be an opportunity to practice some techniques I don't often use to develop my craft to perfection. I ponder for days and weeks which skills I would like to practice while still creating a show piece worthy of competition and judging. What can I practice that will still fit in with the "Grown-ups" division? I decided I needed some forearm strength (cause women can't ever bulk up their forearms enough) to control the icing with speed and accuracy while decorating. Gravity defying piping techniques with royal icing was just the thing. There is a particular oval shape that lifts off the cake making the icing look as light as clouds. This can only be achieved by flipping the cake upside-down and right side-up over and over again with intermissions of drying time. Don't worry. Your computer is not missing a picture waiting to be downloaded. These oval shapes did not make it onto the cake. I wasn't able to conquer the flipping and drying and flipping and drying. Forearms - take a breather. I did get a good workout on my patience, though.
Ok. Next. I thought it would be really fun to freehand scrollwork. How bad can I mess up squiggly lines? I have a degree in landscape architecture. I did loads of drawings with flowy organic lines freehand. Like an architect I sketched out a design and spaced each scroll evenly around the cake. I can only take freehand so far. Still - don't worry. This work also didn't make the final cut. No picture is missing. After many curls of icing went dribbling down the side of the cake looking as though the cake was left out in the rain (Are you totally thinking of that one Donna Summer song? Me too!) it was nixed.
As the competition drew nearer I started to panic. What was I going to do?!! In the meantime I was waiting for a mold of fondant to dry that would make the top cake look like it was floating. I had started this sculpture a couple of weeks prior and had been trying, reeeally reeeeally trying not to breath on it while it cured. Like I said I was a landscape architect not a structural engineer. How was I to know that that skinny amount of fondant couldn't hold up the weight of a cake? No worry. No pic.
I needed to make something. Something that I could make. On to Plan D. As seen in previous posts I love to make sugar flowers. This worked out. I had something I liked and worthy of showing the judges. If I had to resort to making sugar flowers, which I have done before, I wanted them to stand out. I decided to make a whole bouquet of roses to hold up the top tier of cake. This will have a similar effect of a floating top cake like the afore mentioned fondant sculpture. No piping yet but part of the original vision made it to the final showcase.
I finally chose to conquer smaller shorter royal icing dreams. When in doubt - layer. So, short small leaves and single thin stems were integrated with pre-cut fondant shapes. This still gave my forearms a run for their money.
After all this hard work my heart had changed from humble to I WANT TO WIN!! Forget practice and secretly becoming a master. My forearms hurt!! Hours of time gone forever. Pounds of fondant down the drain. I had one last trick up my sleeve that included piping, freehand no less. I will admit the freehand loosely followed pre-set lines made by a cookie cutter. Like earlier, when needed, layer, layer, layer. After piping outlines of roses I applied brush embroidery. It is waaaaaay easier than it sounds. Only the effect of this technique is worthy of its fancy name. Then I added some 3D illusion with petal dust.
The show was held in Austin, Texas. A good excuse to go for the weekend. The cake survived the road trip and looked nice standing next to all its competitors. After the showcase showdown the beloved and I tore it up on 6th Street like college kids. Couldn't you go for a drink right now? I certainly could.
With a humble heart,
Connie
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