I Need Help Making "grass".
Decorating By darkchocolate Updated 17 Jul 2006 , 5:17am by Steady2Hands
I tried making grass Tuesday and then the board went down, so needless to say my cake didn't have any grass.
I would like to know the consistency (icing) needed or any other helpful hints. At first the grass just leaned over, so I tried making the icing stiffer by adding powdered sugar but that didn't help either.
darkchocolate
Are you trying to make it too tall? I use a medium to stiff consistency. Seems like for me, the easiest is to squeeze & pull quickly and each time in a slightly different direction. But I usually like mine to look like it needs "mowed". LOL Some of it is short, and the longer ones lay over a little.
trent, are those grass tips? I have the grass tip but it just made spaghetti. I wanted my grass to stand up so to speak. What is the consistency of your icing?
darkchocolate
Squeeze, stop, lift. Don't squeeze while lifting. This is how I have done it with the grass tip. Hope that helps
I used medium to stiff consistency (see my car cake in my photos) and used tip 233. I also didn't blend the green tint completely to give the streaky appearance (texture). HTH.
I want to put the grass on a 9 X 13 cake. There will be a 3-D soccer ball in the centre, with grass around it. Should I put a thin layer of green icing on first, so there won't be any "holes"? Or is it pretty easy to make the grass? I'm thinking of the first time I used the star tip - there were some "holes" where you could see the cake right through it (but I'm better at it now!). 
Can you get ahold of a tip 233? There is virtually no chance of holes with that tip because it covers so much territory. If you're just using a regular star tip you may want to do a light crumb coat where the grass will be piped. I understand what you mean by "holes" and that is why when I basketweave I always use the same color to crumb coat as the color I am going to pipe with. Best of luck to you and hope this has helped.
Hi gakali - I frosted the cake first in green, then as was said used tip 233- squeeze, lift, again. Once you get going it actually goes pretty quick. And remember, grass isn't perfect. Attached is picture of cake I covered with "Grass". Sounds real similar to what you are doing. Good luck!!!!!!!
gakali ~ My personal preference is to apply a thin layer of green icing where I am going to put the grass. Like samsgranny, I do the same for a basketweave. I've seen many cakes with "holes" and that could be resolved with a thin layer of the same color icing.
Thanks for all the help on making grass. The tip about squeezing, stop then lifting really helped me. I will try that the next time.
darkchocolate
I have done two grass cakes in the last 2 months; you can see them at my pics...
I frost with green icing first, use the grass tip and a fairly firm icing to get it to stand up. As the icing softens, it will begin to get softer and floppier, but I like that too because I like my grass to look a little floppy. If you squeeze for too long though, you'll get spaghetti...
good luck--it's fun to do...
Thanks gakali ~ all I wanted to do is make my children's birthday cakes. Then about a year and a half ago people started asking me to make cakes for them. I couldn't believe it. It's such a fun hobby!! 
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