Cake Decorating 101

I have been taking cake decorating classes for a couple of months now. Let me first say, it is so much fun - I absolutely love it! With that being said, let me also say this means I am up to my ears in frosting. I always try to find some use for my cakes - I don't want them in our house! So my co-workers may have gained some weight recently :-) When a recent birthday arrived for a member of our family, I jumped all over the opportunity to bake and decorate their birthday cake.
Let me describe the cake to you first ( you may want to close your eyes here) : 4 layers of homemade, rich, moist chocolate cake, separated by a melt-in-your mouth chocolate frosting (also homemade). Okay, you can open your eyes now and wipe the drool off your chin! But seriously, it was delicious. It reminded me of a molten chocolate lava cake...yum! Now staying true to my style, I was up late the night before baking the cake and making the frosting (Maybe 1 or so...not too bad :-) )
The next day, I thought that I would have enough time to frost and decorate the cake during my daughter's nap and have the cake ready for the party that evening. As you can see by the photos, I did have the cake set, but literally only with about 5 minutes to spare. (This was a little source of tension between my husband and I). I guess what happened is that I had so many things that I wanted to do and incorporate into the cake. I guess some people would call that "unrealistic expectations". I'm an overachiever, what can I say? But, as you can see I was able to include several different techniques that I have learned : the rose, the swirl flower, shell and star borders. I am the most proud of the roses- a lot goes in to those babies! Each petal is made by hand!!!
So despite my late night and running around like a chicken with my head cut off the day of the party, I would call this a success. It all worked out- the cake made it on time and the birthday girl was happy. I mean maybe I should try to start my projects a little bit more in advance, but I worry....maybe I don't work as well if I am not under pressure!!! But, maybe I should try- atleast for my husband's sake :-)