Recipe for success

How does one get to be good at the cake decorating gig? The same way, one gets to Carnegie Hall. Practice! One of the most difficult parts of cake decorating is the scroll work. Those swirly, circular motions are easy to do with a bit of practice. I purchased a book of flourishes to help me. My sis is a calligrapher and it comes natural to her. I say natural, because she has spent the requisite 400 hours practicing her flourishes, to get to be an expert. Me, about three hours, so I decided to buy a book. This book:

It has a ton of exercises in it. How do I use it? Well, I scan a flourish I want to practice. Print it out. Then cover it with waxed paper. Fill a tube with frosting and do the exercise in frosting. Over and over, again and again. Once your waxed paper is full of practice pieces, just scrape it off and start again. It will train your hand in the ways of "flourishing". I love the exercise and the fact that they are done in frosting makes it even a bit easier for me. Pen work not so easy. Icing, yes. So there you have it. Practice! Then maybe you'll get to do something like this without freaking out. It's that simple. This cake was done by s'mee, it's what made me decide to practice!