Lesson 6: Ribbon Roses and Strings

In this course I will learn a total of 16…or was it 19(?) types of flowers. Whichever, 16 is a big number in my books! I was happy to learn the rose. So the ribbon rose is heaps easier than the Victorian rose. It’s a matter of squeezing the piping bag with consistent pressure and turning the flower nail smoothly. The flower looks like a rolled ribbon, hence the name. We used petal tip #103 for this and we also learned to pipe roses with that tip. The technique is similar piping the Victorian Rose.

To decorate the side of the cake, we learned to pipe strings. It’s really quite simple but to get your hand to behave and not shake is challenging. If you have bubbles in the BC then it may look like something has been taking little nibbles out of it. What I learned that was helpful to ensure that the string starts well is to touch the tip to the top rim of the cake then start squeezing and pulling the piping bag down and make sure the tip touches the surface of the cake at the bottom too so the string remains attached to the cake.

Here is a perfect example of imperfect strings

What I loved best about this cake is the ruffles! It is so simple and so pretty. Using the leaf tip #57 squeeze the piping bag and pull the bag with medium speed in the direction you want the ruffle to ‘roll out’ and Voila! I can think of so many ways to use this style.