Happy Spring Cake

I made a cake for our Easter company that I like to think of as a "happy spring cake." It is decorated with all sorts of brightly colored gumpaste flowers (guaranteed to give your toddler hyperactivity and cavities) and a lovely basket weave design to make it look, well, like a basket.

You see, we are in desperate need of these little reminders of spring because in these parts spring is very late. Way past fashionably late, we are left wondering if it's going to come at all. We had snow yesterday--snow!--and everyone is cold, grumpy and miserable. However, a super sugary sweet concoction always helps to make things a little better. Especially if it has chocolate in it.

So, last weekend I decided to drag out my cake decorating supplies and how to books. I had never made any flowers with royal icing (only took the basic decorating class) but I figured I'd give it a try because they would look pretty on top of a cake.

Well, they do look pretty, but they are a huge pain in the ass to make. The good part is that once you make about a billion gumpaste flowers, they dry hard like candy and will keep a long time as long as they are kept in an airtight container.


This entire process (making numerous batches of two different kinds of icing, the cake, the flowers) ended up being an all day affair; of course, I had estimated it to be a 2 hour our so job. Luckily my husband understands that from time to time, I will get involved in these huge creative projects that always take about 4x's more time and effort than I estimate ("I should have this done in an hour!") and dirty every bowl and utensil in the kitchen (have I mentioned I cook, he cleans?)

He also had the task of trying to distract my son when he repeated the word "cake" over and over for about 20 minutes straight ("cake.cake.cake.cake.cake.cake") in an effort to convince me to give him cake for dinner. He is a very patient man, my husband. However, he also gets to reap the rewards of the finished product, so it's not all bad.

If you're interested in learning a few basic techniques of cake decorating, sign up for a Wilton Cake Decorating I class at Hobby Lobby. It's only 4 or 5 classes and if you hit it right, you can often take the class for 1/2 off if they're running a special.