I Think I Have A Defective Tip 104 Lol
Decorating By countrykittie Updated 25 Feb 2007 , 4:27pm by sweetviolent
Ok, let me preface this by saying that I have icing consistency issues...it's either too stiff or not stiff enough...
But, yesterday while making my roses...I realized that the icing was too stiff...added some water to it...I even let it warm up in my hands. Still, when I make my roses (I'm in Wilton1 and we have our final class next Wednesday) they have that 'old' look because the edges are all frayed and not smooth. Now personally, I kind of like the 'old' look, but some people may not.
How do I get the smooth lines without watering down the icing too much? Any tips???
TIA
I was having that problem until I paid more attention to the way I was squeezing my bag. It's kind of hard to explain, but try putting more pressure on the top of the bag (where your kuckles are) rather than squeezing with the heel of your hand, this way you aren't letting a lot more icing out of the wide bottom part of the tip than the top narrow part that forms the edge of the petal. Does that make sense? Also, slow down a little, when I rush along the petal edges get streched a little and pull to a ruffled edge a bit.
countrykittie,
I have my last class coming up on Tuesday night! 
Roses are not easy for me either. Glad to know it isn't just me!
When I was a six year old helping my mother with her cakes, I could make roses in a snap. Now that I've gotten back into decorating, I hate them. I like some ruffle to my edges too, but these things I'm putting out are horrible. I called my mother assuming it was my recipe (couldn't possibly be operator error) and she can't remember what she used to use (oh, I think it may have been a cup of this and a cup of that, you know, just put it all together) AUGH. So now I'm back to experimenting for that perfect recipe. Perhaps I will focus more on that knuckles thing - it makes sense.
I was once told to take a flower nail and gentlypoke it through the narrow end of the opening ( from the back side ) to open it just a hair more-sometimes they come to closed up- but just a little -that helped me with the ragged issue ( not that i am any good at bc roses)
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%