Rose Cake

This was my first attempt at gum paste roses (which I've been wanting to make for a while now). I didn't have petal cutters so I decided to make each rose petal out of a flattened ball of tinted gum paste.

And although that meant there were a lot of pieces for each flower, I think it was well worth the effort.

They ended up looking so real (and I'm definitely embarrassed to admit this) that I even fooled myself at one point. 

While I had the whole tray of roses drying in the kitchen I walked past them, and almost out of reflex before I'd even fully thought about what I was doing, I picked one of them up and smelled it. Like I would do if it were real- realizing as I got a wiff of "sugar" instead of "rose"what I'd done.

The white icing boarder was also special. It's my first crack and drop icing! If you don't know the term "drop icing" it means you pipe one long string of icing letting it hang dangerously in mid-air (ready to break at any moment) and every so often touch it to the surface of the cake to form even swags. (It's kind of like the high wire act of the cake icing world.)

It went as good as it could have- no breaks at all! But, boy was it nerve-raking. I was really glad this was a small cake!