One fine day, the ‘non flower cake artist’, let’s call her Polly, decided to make a sugar rose to decorate her Mom’s birthday cake. Being ambitious and with a hint of naiveté, dear Polly chose to make the most complicated David Austin rose despite having not seen one before in real life. And thus began her misadventures…

After numerous failures, Polly finally succeeded in making the inner petals for the rose. But alas, she didn’t dry it sufficiently before adding more petals to it and it broke! Starting over, she succeeded in finally making what had a tiny semblance to the real flower although it looked too symmetrical and unnatural to her liking. Thinking that dusting it will make it look more natural, she dusted it with some plum petal dust. However, being very sleepy at the time, she didn’t realised that she had dusted it too much and it now looked like a purple cabbage. Yikes!

Not to be beaten and thinking ‘third time lucky’, Polly embarked on another rose and finally succeeded although it looked more like a fantasy version of the real flower. She then baked the cake, iced it with pink fondant and decorated it with sugar lace. But lo and behold, she discovered too late that the purplish red tone of the rose and the bright pink of the cake didn’t match! Ooh… Thank goodness for kind cake friends who advised her to dust the rosé with pink petal dust and to airbrush the cake with pearl sheen that the day (or cake) was saved! Hip! Hip! Hooray!

*Polly, you better put the kettle on and invite your kind and lovely cake friends over for tea!

Polly put the kettle on,
Polly put the kettle on,
Polly put the kettle on,
We’ll all have tea. (popular English language nursery rhyme)*

Made this cake for my Mom’s birthday last Wednesday (January 15th) and the above story is all true! This is my first cake of 2014 and my first sugar flower since 2011. I finally had the opportunity to try out Jo Orr of Ciccio Cakes’s edible sugar lace recipe and tutorial. The tutorial is awesome with simple to achieve step by step and the resultant sugar lace is beautiful and flexible! Thank you so much Jo! Also many thanks to Robin Apted of Unusual cakes for you’s tutorial on the David Austin Rose which took out a lot of guesswork in making the rose and also for her encouragement and support. I owe you tea, Robin!

Thanks for looking! And for reading my story! :)