Lesson 7: Basketweave and Daisies

I still remember seeing the Basketweave technique of piping buttercream for the first time.  I looked at it then tried to read how to do it and the words sort of just became a jumble of what came first, what came next, hold your tip at such a such an angle, woikjf inwleij kje iae oeetwe ij aijl and so on and so forth.  So boy was I happy someone was going to teach me!

And you know what?  It was easy to learn!  People who saw the cake would go, "Wow!  That looks really difficult" and secretly I want to nod my head, look really serious and go, "Yeah."  But I don't and maybe, just maybe a couple of people were thinking, "Show-off!".  Whatever.  The thing I like most about the basketweave (tip #47) is that it is quite versatile and a easy way to cover your cake.  White is very elegant and pastel colours just look like it came off the pages of Country Living magazine.

Next up were daisies.  Lots and lots of daisies.  These were really fun to pipe too. (tip #103)  Position your tip on the 2nd part of a 'V' and then pipe in a fairly upright position to give your petals that nice full looking petal.  Be sure to ease off the pressure on the piping bag as you drag the tip to the centre to get a nice narrow end to the petal.  We piped 2 sizes of daisies onto wax paper then transfer that onto a cake board and popped that into the fridge to harden.  Once the cake had been iced and decorated with the basketweave style along the sides of the cake then we place the daiisies on top of the cake.