I just finished up course two Tuesday night. This cake was doomed from the beginning. I had a great class the first night using buttercream. The second class was horrible. I actually thought about leaving early and dropping out. My royal icing was too thin - my daisies turned into royal icing fried eggs! Everying drooped and melted into puddles. I was so dissappointed, but didn't give up. Class three went much better as I had the right consistency of RI. I even made up all new RI flowers the next day! Woohoo, I was back!

Tuesday night before class I gathered up my supplies only to find out DH laid his cell phone on top of my RI flowers!!!! What was he thinking? My daffodils were crushed, but looked salvageable. Not the case when I arrived to class and discovered over half of my flowers had been cracked. I was soooo upset. There was no way DH was going to get a piece of this cake - it was going to work with me Wednesday.

My cake turned out pretty good. The basketweaving was nice and my instructor complimented on it. I was very happy with my finished cake and proudly drove it home. My son was very eager to see my cake and commented how the decorations slid. I assumed he was talking about my RI flowers cascading on the sides. Nope, full buttercream icing slide!!! And how did DH respond? He laughed. Nope, definitely no cake for him now. And no, I didn't take it to work either - too embarrassed to bring a cake in that's damaged! Haha.

I don't know if my rope border was too close to the edge and not resting on the cake or a combination of warm weather that night.

Hugs,
Diana in VA

Well, it looked great before the slide. It can help to use a crumb coat under basket weave. The icing and cake can tend to pull apart. The crumb coat firmly applied, can help stick the weave.

Also, be sure your cake and icing are about the same temperature. A col cake with tend to separate the buttercream and it can pull off.

Hey, why not just cut a wedge out of the damaged side and take the rest to work. Just say you were bringing in the leftovers. The back is beautiful.

Sorry about your disaster but the great looked great and your flowers are gorgeous. It does look like the top border is a little heavy and on the outside the cake. but hey, isn't that why we practice? And, the best part is that we get to eat our practice cakes.

We all have good days and bad days. But aside from the slippage, I think it was a beautiful job. There could have been any number of reasons why this happened.

Don't beat yourself up to bad (or poor DH) the next one will be better.

awe...well your cakes looks beautiful...its that no transfat crisco!!!!

i agree no cake for husband!!!! hahahahahah

Your flowers look really good--I love the deep yellow and purple. As one of my friends said when I couldn't get a cake smooth this week...there will be no evidence of anything wrong tomorrow when we eat it--move on (yes, she laughed at me as I tried to fix the wrinkles in the cake).
Smile at the good parts and think of all the practice you got doing this one!
I, too, had RI problems during Wilton II and did many flowers over.

You did a great job on the flowers, the basketweave and the rope border. Your border is large so it was probably just a little to heavy. Gorgeous and precise work though. You did a great job. Dig in and enjoy your hard work!

I've never done a crumb coat, guess I could start to prevent mudslides in the future. I also didn't think to make my rope border with a smaller tip, don't know why I grabbed the size I did.

I'm over it and looking for forward to course three next Tuesday. It's just me and my mom this course as my friend can't commit this time around. We learned extra techniques with only three of us in the class and we're hoping our instructor will teach us extra stuff this time too.

Hugs,
Diana in VA

What a beautiful cake!! Before AND after. Take that to work girl!!!! Like someone else said take that wedge out and eat it LOL

Beautiful flowers!!!!!

Don't give up!!

Have a great day !!

Christi

It was very very pretty! I agree though, crumbcoat and smaller top border next time!

My second course went exactly the same way!

Every time I made RI, it turned out like soup (I followed the recipe EXACTLY and I made sure each time there was no fat residue in the bowl)... my teacher and I could never figure out why.

But I had fried egg dasies. And primroses that looked like weird pink blobs with a yellow weird in the center.

And when I got home, my icing and flowers had pulled completely away from the side of the cake.

I used paper towls (I don't know if they were Viva or not, but they worked well for what I needed them for) and pushed it right back up, then cut that side first

edit: gah! double post.

Yep. It sounds like that Trans-Fat Free Crisco strikes again. Sooooo many people with that same "icing sliding off the side of the cake" story...maybe try one of the fixes that people have come up with here on CC.

Your cake looks great, though. Keep up the good work!

I've only used the new Crisco in my BC recipes since I began my courses this summer. Bummer to find out the recipe is partly to blame (

Hugs,
Diana in VA

First of all I think your flowers turn out Beautiful!!!! " Secondly, Crumb Coat before the basket weaving is a good helper in keeping the weave on the cake....thridly...it is that zero trans fat again.....

Sorry about what happened but I hope you stuck to your word and DH got NONE!!! Teach him a lesson and gl in course 3