Using royal icing, I made two open roses and a bud, rose leaves and some jasmine flowers and buds. I finished them with dusted colours and steaming, and then fashioned them into a type of corsage.

I did day one of a course at a baking shop today, to make icing roses and other flowers (we started with roses) and let me tell you, the current rate of R50 for a rose is too little in my opinion!

It was great fun, and the professionals who make and sell these realistic flowers still make the proper royal icing with tylose in it because the ready-made sugar paste in the shops can’t be rolled as nicely as this stuff, and it dries and cracks too fast. The sugar paste is fine for moulding and for making bears and such, but for the proper flowers the royal icing is still best. Its far more elastic and it can be rolled exquisitely thin without tearing.

The second and last day of my course is next week and I am very excited about finishing my first ever icing “bouquet”!

Whilst I always admired the people who made these gawjiss realistic flowers for wedding cakes and such, I have a new respect for the work they do!

Here is a picture of the start of my first rose! Its not finished yet, we’ll finish the flowers next week- and I have to make a couple more before next week’s class. And yes, I coloured mine a pale blue!

I was kicking myself all weekend because I didn’t take my camera with me when I delivered these wedding cupcakes for Natassja and Melvin to the Indaba Hotel!!

They were chocolate and vanilla cupcakes topped alternately with a white and yellow butter icing piped rose, and a custard buttercream piped rose.

The white rose cupcake wrappers were from Paperkutz.

Email from Natassja:

Louise ordered these from me for her “Champagne and Cupcakes” themed birthday party!

Vanilla cupcakes in black paper cups with Turkish delight secret centres, a layer of white vanilla butter icing topped with a pink vanilla butter icing swirl and different sized silver dragees.

Strawberry cupcakes in pink paper cups topped with a pale pink strawberry flavoured butter icing swirl and pink glitter.

Chocolate cupcakes in silver paper cups with a chocolate ganache stuffing. They are iced with a cerise pink vanilla butter icing squiggle and topped with white fondant roses.

This order consisted of a very tasty variety!

There were marble cupcakes (chocolate and vanilla swirled together) topped with blue and white two-tone vanilla butter icing, a silver fondant “D” and silver dragees, red velvet cupcakes topped with cream cheese icing and a little bit of fresh strawberry (I just love those two flavours together), and vanilla cupcakes- some topped with my trademark soft serve utter icing and some topped with the butter icing roses.