Easter Basket Cake (first attempt at decorating with direction!)

Easter happened mid-way through my cake decorating class and naturally I was eager to put my new-found skills to the test.  Thankfully I'm usually charged with dessert (and dinner rolls) for my family's Easter dinner.  I decided to make a cake so I could decorate it (in the past I've brought tortes and pies).  Naturally I tried yet another red velvet recipe.  I'm pretty sure I really did find the winner for my wedding cake recipe this time- not only was it a very rich red color (the other cakes were definitely more brown than red), it was still moist and delicious after three days in the fridge. As I'm sure the week leading up to a wedding is bound to be a crazy time no matter how organized I intend to be, longevity will be my friend.

I really wanted to make the cake with a basket-weave since I think it looks very detailed, but doesn't really take that much effort.  We hadn't covered it in class, but Wilton has quite a few informational videos online, so that was plenty helpful.  I knew I wanted to have lots of spring-themed designs, so I made my drop flowers ahead of time to save on some decoration time.  I was surprised how well they set up over the course of a few days.  By the time I was ready to use them, they were hard enough to pick up and place wherever I wanted them.  I found it very helpful to be able to place the leaves and flowers when I wasn't risking mashing whatever I placed first.

I ended up making it a four layer cake (two eight-inch rounds, each torted).  In between each layer I used a cream cheese icing filling (colored red, since I had it left over from filling our cupcakes for the Wilton class).  I used a classic butter cream icing for the rest of the cake

The basket weave up the sides ended up being simple, but time consuming.  I was SO happy that Chris bought us a decorating turn-table. Next time for the weave I will be doing one "line" of the weave at a time (one vertical line with the crosshatches).  I was too impatient and did a bunch of vertical lines before adding the hatch lines and it was difficult to hide the ends and truly give it the "weaved" look.

I used a piping gel transfer to get the images on the cake since I'm no artist.  I used a combination of the star technique and a round tip to create different textures.  I had a lot of trouble getting the stars to work- I originally thought my icing was too thin, but my Wilton instructor pointed out that I probably was changing the consistency with the heat from my hands.  She suggested keeping two bags of each color ready next time and alternating when it gets too thin.

The rest was incredibly easy- the grass was so simple with tip 233 and stiff icing.  The flowers were a breeze to place!  The end result was what I considered an impressive first attempt!  Definitely some room for improvement on technique, but I was very happy with how it turned out.

My family said it was too pretty to eat, but clearly that was not the case!