Lesson 3: The Rosebud

I am really enjoying my lessons and to be honest, I would enjoy it more if I understood what everyone was talking about. One of my classmates, Gyeong Ha (경하) is a right Little Miss Chatterbox but not in an annoying sort of way. I actually really like the chatter that she generates and although I don't understand, from all the expression with that "ya's" and the "yo's" that I am hearing I'm sure it's interesting stuff. She has a friendly personality and is quite wicked with her rosebud piping techniques.

Gyeong Ha taking a pic of her half finished cake

She broke the ice with me right away with her basic English and of course that endeared her to me right away. She sits on my right. Another classmate is Hee Young (희 영) who is a really nice and very focussed. She doesn't speak any English (unless you consider Konglish) but that simply does not deter her from striking up a conversation with me. From Day 1, she has been talking to me in Korean while I pick up maybe 3 out of every 10 words that she is saying and try to make out what she is saying from 3 or 4 sentences then I will either say "Mullayo" as in "I don't know" or do my best to answer in my broken Korean. Charrayo! (잘아어!)

I think of her as the Mama of the group. Not so much as because she brought her 9 year-old daughter for the first lesson who was quite well behaved and patient which is unusual for a 9 year-old (most of us are Mamas there) but she just looked out for me from the offset. When teacher tells us what tips to use, she sometimes forgets to switch to English and I understand most of the numbers albeit a little slower but sometimes when I am focussed on practicing, I don't hear it and Hee Young will show me which one to use. She's very dedicated and takes a 2 hour journey each way just to come to class. She's learning to hopefully start her own home baking business soon. Go Hee Young!

Hee Young decorating with 100% concentration. She's piping dots which they call 'teng teng' in Korean. All I was hearing at one point when Crystal was giving instruction was "(blah blah blah) teng teng (blah blah blah). [Repeat]". So I had to ask what this 'teng teng' was as no one thought to translate.

So in Lesson 3 we learned to pipe the Rosebud. There's 4 steps to it:

1) Base Petal

2) Overlapping Petal

3) Sepals

4) Calyx

No, I did not translate this from Korean... I have the book. It's in the Wilton Method of Cake Decorating: Course 2. The trick with this is getting the angle for the overlapping petal right. I get the best results when I don't let my tip touch the decorating surface and let the icing roll the base petal over. The sepals and calyx were easy. We piped these on to baking paper that was laid onto cake boards and made 2 colours of the rosebuds and put the in the fridge.

The reverse shell and the 'teng teng's'

After that, the teacher and assistants (there are 2... or 3) helped us ice our cakes. Once that was done, we piped a decorative edge on the base. I did the reverse shell which is my favourite so far. Then it was time to take the rosebuds out of the fridge to place artistically on the cake. Very pretty. I brought the cake out for a party I had the next day and no one dared to cut the cake! I plunged the knife in in the end so people could help me eat it.