It's time for lesson 3 in the Wilton Course 2 Flowers and Cake Design Class that I am taking! In this class we are learning to make: the Lily, basketweave, and reverse shell border.
2 hours before class we had a horrible storm come through and lost electricity for about 20 hours. Lots of damage to the area around here. I was thrilled when I called my instructor to find there was still electricity at Michael's and that I had a chance to escape to class! However, I surely didn't do my best work last night. A couple of my flowers petals broke in transit as well, and once they got home, melted a little due to the heat.
So with all that said...here is what I learned!
These are the lilies I made in class...once they arrived home, as you can see some of the tips are broken off the petals and they started to melt into the centers. I may see if I can "glue" the tips back on later!
Here is a little closer picture. We use a special thin candy foil covering a lily nail to make our flower in. The petals were piped using royal icing with tip 366, and then we made a little green royal icing star with tip 14 inside. To blend it we used our brush dipped in a little extract and painted it up the side. The first couple I didn't use enough green, and once it melted you can't see that there was green at all in some of them. Anyway once that is done, you cut your stamen in half at the thick part and open it up and push it right into your wet flower. These lilies are supposed to take quite awhile to dry since they are deep in the cup. Even once the petals are dry, the center may not be. I am not totally happy with them as of yet, I definately need to practice!
This is the basketweave done with tip 47, the white reverse shell done with tip 21, the green reverse shell was with tip 14. The basketweave was very easy and that will be on my final cake, I think everyone is supposed to use that on there final cakes. The reverse shell was pretty easy too once I got the angle down. It is just like making little question marks.
Here are some more of my practices. I wasn't making my shells close enough together to begin with. We did this with royal icing, but on the final cake it will be in buttercream.
This morning, I needed to clean out my bags and tips and had just enough icing left to try one more lily. There was so little icing in the bag I was really having to use my thumb to push it through, but it is enough to give you an idea on how to make them!
So here is my little Lily tutorial!
Picture #1 (left)- Royal icing piped with a tip 366 onto a foil covered lily nail. I have trimmed the foil and slightly turned it under so it doesn't get in the way. I first piped 3 petals into a "Y" shape and then fill in the other 3. My petals aren't the same size...but the goal is for them to be!
Picture #2 (right)- Star piped in with royal icing and tip 14.
Picture #3 (left)- I smoothed the star out with my small brush dipped into extract. You can use Vodka too, but for class we used extract. Just don't use water...it will break down the icing. Again, I did a sloppy job with this, but I was doing this with no electricity in the heat, so that's my excuse!
Picture #4 (right)- Stamen inserted...makes a world of a difference, don't ya think? Our instructor had some very elegant pearl tipped stamens...love!
I will definately be making more lilies and I will keep making them until I am happy with them! Still not sure on what design I will do for next weeks final cake. We will be learning the Wilton Rose, but can't use it on our cake since it will still be wet. This week I need to make all the flowers that I intend to use on my cake and I need to do it soon so they can dry! Usually, I have everything planned out and ready to execute...this time I am just winging it! I did sign up last night for
Wilton Course 3: Gumpaste and Fondant that will start as soon as I finish Course 2!
Photo added on 5/26/2011- Getting the hang of making the lilies!
If you read my post on last weeks Wilton Course 2: Flowers and Cake Design- Lesson 2, I wrote about having a problem getting the flowers off of the paper. I posted to the Wilton Discussion Forum and quickly got my answer! I needed to wait a few days, if not even a week, before removing them from the papers, depending on the humidity where I live. 5 days after making the flowers, I tried again and the couple flowers that I tried came off very easily. However, I decided to leave them on the papers until I use them so they will be easier to move, instead of trying to take them off to photograph them without papers.
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