Frosting + Baggies = Flowers

I wanted to do something special for my dear daughter on her birthday.  She has a newborn AND they are working on their new house.  So, a birthday party was not on their radar.  I usually buy her an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins, but this time I decided to bake one myself.  

I don't cook.  I don't bake.  Yes.  I've been around the block a few times and I have baked a few cakes in my life.  It's just not something I desire to do.  Until this day.  I had a box of lemon cake mix in my cupboard (how did that get there?).  Lemon it is!  I baked two rounds and bought some pre-made icing at the store.  Then I headed over to youtube to see if I could figure out how to make some pretty flowers.  Oh my goodness....there were a bazillion videos on how to do this.  I kept typing in "easy" and I found Ann Reardon, http://www.howtocookthat.net/public_html/how-to-pipe-butter-cream-flowers-using-only-a-ziplock-bag/.  

This nice lady in Australia taught me how to make frosting flowers with only a baggie and a chopstick. She made it look really easy!! My frosting was not stiff enough, and I read about adding Crisco and powdered sugar to beef it up a little.  I never really got it stiff enough, but it worked out ok.  



The best flower I made was the first one.  As I went on, they got meltier.  I started to hurry and just placed them on the cake as quick as I could! That's when they started looking more like blobs.  I would like to try this again, with the right kind of frosting!

My daughter adored her cake.  I'm not going to say that I am proud of it.  I will say that it was fun and it made me actually want to learn cake decorating.  Maybe sometime....

Of course, I was very happy to see the boy!!  He is starting to laugh now.  So precious!!