How To Make Buttercream Sweet Peas
It's always best to start on the easiest flower and the buttercream sweet pea is easy. Start with a tip #XXX. There are two sides to the tip, a slightly wider end and a narrower end. Place a dab of buttercream on a piping nail and place a square of parchment on top.
With the narrower end of the tip facing up pipe five small arcs starting in the centre allowing your left hand (if you are right handed) to rotate the piping nail. Gently place near a plastic tray and slide the square of parchment with your flower onto the tray. Don't worry if your sweet peas aren't perfect. You can of course scrape the buttercream back into the bowl. Jessica says that it takes at least ten attempts before you are on the right track.
Watch the video on how to pipe buttercream sweet peas
Hint: Try flipping the piping bag so that the larger end of the tip faces upwards and you get a different style of flower with fatter petals.
Making flowers using the same tip but with the larger opening at top
How To Make A White Fantasy Flower Out of Buttercream
We are now moving onto the next flower, a slightly harder one but I found this one easy to do considering how complicated it looked! Start with a #2 tip with a pale yellow green buttercream. Pipe a small circle of buttercream and then pipe a ball of buttercream on top. Then pipe small droplets on top making sure to stop squeezing the buttercream so that you don't end up with a long line of buttercream.
Take a white buttercream and tip #61 and with the larger end facing down, get closer to the stamen and pipe a circle around it. It will look as though it is enclosing the stamen or hugging it. Pipe around the stamen two or three times stopping when you need to to turn. Lastly to create a lovely outturned effect rotate piping around in the other direction - the thin curved top will be facing outwards and will create a outward petal look. Carefully place on the tray and freeze completely.
Watch the video on how to pipe buttercream fantasy flowers
How To Make Succulents Out of Buttercream
The beauty of making succulents is that there is no real up or down side to the tip and that you need to stop piping at intervals to create the succulent effect allowing your hands to get used to rotating the piping nail without getting tired. Use tip #150 with a green buttercream. Holding the tip slightly angled down, create a curl in the centre as the base.
Then at a 45 degree angle, pipe small increments of buttercream, about 2 or 3 to a circle stopping and slightly overlapping each one until you reach a succulent the size that you want. Carefully place on the tray and freeze completely.
How To Make a Buttercream Rununculus
By now if you've completed the other flowers you may find these easier than they look. They're intimidating sure, with three layers and tightly bound petals but I found these surprisingly straightforward. You can use two or three tips for this:
2 layers using the #101 tip (for the inner layer). You can also use 102-104 tips. A green colour buttercream is best.
1-2 layers using the #104 tip (for the middle layer). A lighter version of a vivid colour is ideal for this.
1-2 layers using the #125 tip (for the outer layer). You can also use #124 or #126 tip. A vivid or stronger colour is ideal for this.
Start piping some green buttercream onto the piping nail making a rounded mound. Using tip #101 with the narrower end pointing upwards, draw an arc across the mound. You will draw four of these arcs and the tip will follow close to the flower as the rununculus is quite a closed flower.
Then take tip #104 with the pale pink and pipe arcs overlapping each other keeping the height of the rununculus about even. Do one or two rounds of these (two if you are making a larger flower).
Then take tip #125 with the brightest shade and do the same arcs with the darkest colour (you can also do the middle and outer layer with the same shade and a green centre). Do one layer and then finish off the sides with arcs that stay more on the side than on the top of the flower. Carefully place on the tray and freeze completely.
Watch the video on how to pipe a buttercream rununculus
To Assemble the Buttercream Flower Cake
Now comes the fun part! Assembly!
You will need:
Your buttecream flowers, frozen completely
Your iced cake, frozen
Two shades of green buttercream, a forest green and a yellow green
Two leaf tips (the numbers for leaf tips range from #30, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70, 106 or 352. All produce leaves of varying types).
A #3 and #4 tip to make tiny buds (these are so cute!)
Extra couplers
A shade of light pink buttercream in a piping bag fitted with the #3 tip and a couple
Tip #129 for random flowers to fill gaps
A cake turntable
Make sure the cakes and the flowers are all frozen and that you have extra buttercream to use to create a mount for the flowers. Draw an outline about half an inch from the edge and create a mound in buttercream.
If you work fairly quickly you can position the flowers with your hands. You can also use two toothpicks if you need to but hands give you a bit more dexterity. Even with my "hot hands" (a pastry cook's scourge) they didn't melt as I made sure to only touch them briefly. Start with the largest flowers and place those on the buttercream topped cake first.
There will be large gaps of buttercream between the flowers but do not worry. Now take your leaf tips. We used 67 and 352 with one shade of green in each. I'd recommend using a coupler with the yellow green shade as you will be making some really simple, gorgeous buds using this and another tip.
Fill in the gaps with the piped leaves making sure to check the cake for gaps from every angle up and down and turn around.
To add the buds, switch the yellow green leaf tip to a #4 plain tip. Pipe some small balls of green buttercream among the leaves. Then take the light pink buttercream piping bag with a #3 tip and insert the tip inside the green ball of buttercream.
Using piping tips like #129 you can also pipe colourful little flowers wherever you feel that the cake needs them! Just use the pale pink icing you used for the inside of the blossoms.
And now without further ado, here is my cake! Okay you saw it at the beginning of the post but here are some close-ups. I have never piped a rununculus before and only piped using a couple of tips but I was surprised at how easily the tips brought the blossoms to life!
So tell me Dear Reader, which flower do you like the best? Do you take cake decorating or cooking classes? Do you prefer private or public classes?
Watch the video on how to put the final decorating tips on the buttercream cake
NQN attended the class as a guest of Chocolate Artisan
Chocolate Artisan
Jessica holds private classes as well as public ones. The cost for a private class is $165 per hour for one person. Additional people in private classes are charged at an extra $50 per person. This includes all equipment, supplies, lunch (for longer classes that run over a whole day) as well as an apron, tea towel and recipes to take home. She also has a list of classes available to choose from with no minimum numbers required.
http://www.chocolateartisan.com.au/
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