Second Cake of the Class

My "Final" cake for Course 1.

I didn't go to last week's lesson so I was a little behind. I was off my groove for some reason so it doesn't look as perfect as I wanted. But that's good! It means I can practice more and get better!

Plus, it was Neopolitan flavored, (Chocolate, Strawberry, Vanilla) so it tasted AWESUM. I was actually going to do a vanilla cake layer but it fell apart when I stacked it. I was frustrated at first but then I got to get my hands in all that strawberry filling vanilla cakey crumbly mess to reassemble it and I felt much better.  

As far as the decorating goes, this is my very first attempt (ever in my whole life) to make icing flowers. My buttercream was stiffer than concrete and I had no way of fixing that at my class, so piping was difficult to say the least. I tried to do these roses dozens and dozens of times but really only these five were acceptable enough to actually put on the cake.

All in all I have a few changes I'm going to make for the next cake I do like this one. 

-The fresh strawberry filling will be fluffier frosting, not buttercream. The strawberries need to be diced and mixed in instead of sliced and layered. It makes cutting and presetation better. 

-Thinner icing for easier piping. 

-Better roses, I'm going to practice. 

-Better icing job in general. There were a lot of crumbs in the frosting and it wasn't as smooth as it could have been.

-I think I'll do the roses in pink. Some more color would be pretty I think. The chocolate decorations were nice looking, but it would be better with some dusty rosy pink flowers. And my green was borrowed icing from someone else. Next time I'll make it more of a natural green leaf color.

Next cake? Wednesday! My mom needs a dessert for her bible study! :)