Perils of Piping...

It was the penultimate cake decorating class last night and we were practicing our piping techniques.  We had already designed a pattern for our our cake and marked it on the fondant icing using a template we had drawn and a pin.  Last night was the night we would pipe straight on to the cake and hope our royal icing was the right consistency and our lines were straight!

Now when I say cake here, I actually mean polystyrene mould (aka “the pretend cake”).  We have been using this mould the last few weeks to practice covering with fondant and then the piping last night.  Next week we can bring our own real life cake if we choose and finish it off with the frangipanis and blossoms that we made at the start of the course.  I am definitely going to bring an edible cake – which means that I will be spending Sunday baking, covering and piping onto the cake in preparation for next Monday.

According to Rose (our lovely teacher), piping is one of the most difficult skills to master in cake decorating.  I can believe it...   Who would have thought that a straight line, wiggly line or most of all a single dot could cause so much grief!  It is one thing to pipe on to flat paper but another story all together piping on to the side of a cake, all sort of things start to happen – cramping in the hand, fuzzy vision from concentrating so hard, and the possibility of keeling over due to holding ones breath while doing a particularly tricky pattern.  The perils of cake decorating..

I decided on doing a pretty simple pattern but I think it will look quite good once the cake is all decorated with flowers and pretty things.  I am not sure what colour the cake is going to be yet – probably one of the three colours that I have ...

Here is a pic of the practice piping on the paper round the cake.

In other news I have decided that every weekend (social life permitting) I am going to try cooking something that I have never attempted before,  I might even write a list of things I want to try and knock them off one by one.  In fact that is definitely what I am going to do.. Any suggestions welcome – I am going to start on the list right now and let you know how I go..