Princess Cake <3

So, tonight I have finished my first decorated-cake-for-profit outside of a catering company. A delightful woman from work ordered the Princess Cake for her 6 year old niece, Rachel. She had previously ordered a cheesecake from me and absolutely loved it, so she trusted me to deliver a beautiful cake with the simple instructions of: chocolate, pink, tiara. I hope I accomplished that!

Now, pictures!

Moist chocolate cake recipe. One of my favorites and pretty much the only one I use when chocolate cake is called for! The flavor is deep and rich, the cake has a great structure and is very easy to work with.

The template I designed to help in piping out my royal icing tiara.

The tiara drying on it's form. It's on a sheet of wax paper which sits on top of the template which is taped down to the best round object I could find. ;)

The tiara in it's dried and finished form. Notice the lack of the longer side pieces. Ya, those fell off when I removed the wax paper. Royal icing to the rescue!

The fondant bow drying out. I wrapped the bow section around two matching pepper shakers to help keep their form. Worked out well.

The ribbons drying out a bit and getting some wavering shape added. I had them placed on the cake carrier trying to get a feel for the shape they'd need to fit. Everything wound up nice and snug inside in the end.

Add everything together, a touch of piping and... VIOLA! Princess cake is done! The ribbons on each side say...

Happy Birthday...

Princess Rachel

What do you think? Thoughts, comments... compliments? ;D

Things for me to work on:

• Tighten up my piping skills. I did well, I think, but they could be cleaner and there are some hard to get to gaps near the fondant ribbons.
• Tighten up my handwriting when piping! I have horrible handwriting no matter what, so this will be a hard one. ;)