The art of making a rose

THE ROSE
The lily has a smooth stalk,
Will never hurt your hand;
But the rose upon her brier Is lady of the land.

There's sweetness in an apple tree,
And profit in the corn;
But lady of all beauty Is a rose upon a thorn.
When with moss and honey
She tips her bending brier,
And half unfolds her glowing heart,
She sets the world on fire.

~Christina Rossetti

Now you're probably all thinking I thought she said she didn't like flowers???? And I don't but that doesn't mean I don't see the beauty in them. How each petal is delicately made and how they grow and bloom into fantastic colour. But flowers...... they just aren't my thing. You will not see a flower in my house, save maybe an orchid, they haveno smell, pretty much grows on its own, plain and simple. I don't like the smell of flowers, ESPECIALLY easter lillies *barf* boy do they ever smell awful. But I'm not going to get into all the negatives, flowers just aren't for me.

Well in our cake decorating class when she told us we were going to be learning how to make a rose I thought fabulous...... I looooooooooooooooooooove flowers...................... not. But I did want to learn how to make them on a cake so that if there was someone who did like them in need of a cake I could do it without a second thought.

The rose she tells us is the hardest flower in the course to learn...... right right thats why they put it in course ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *shakes head*
We had been learning the rose step by step each week, first the base, then the base and the middle petal but the third night was when we added all the other petals to make it complete.
Well that went a little south for me. I had been working all day before the class so had my icing in the fridge at work, so when i brought it out it was very stiff and hard to work with. Everyone else that night was just banging off roses, while I was just trying to get my icing to squeeze out without my hands shaking.
I left that night being the only one that couldn't make a rose and was quite frustrated. I had the whole weekend before the last class where we had to bring 6 premade roses to decorate our cake with so I figured I could work on it then.
Well you know how weekends are. I ended up only having half an hour to get making this rose down pat and make 6 of them. I left my icing out on the counter that morning so that my hands wouldn't be shaking like a leaf trying to squeeze icing out.
I sat down and off I went.

I practiced and practiced, saving all the roses so that I could see my progress and actually SEE that I was doing better with each one. Once I got the hand motion for the petals right they started to become better.
Add to that the turning on the nail head and you've got ROSE ACTION!
Notice the picture above, the small rose on the bottom was one of my first roses, and the one closest to the pencil was one of my last. CHA CHING!!!!

We had rose action. And although I knew I could have perfected each and every one of them if I had more time to practice I took my 6 best and let them harden.

The night of the class I was taking them out of the oven, *note* if you set them on a tray in your oven with the light on for a few days it will harden them :) and Moose looked at them and said "WOW Donk, those are really good!" *insert wide grin* For Moose to notice and comment made the night. But it got better. After the class was over, and we had our cakes decorated i was talking to the instructor saying how horrible I did the first night we tried to make them and that I was the only one who couldn't do it. Her reply was, and yours turned out to be the nicest of the bunch!

CHA CHING! A successful attempt at making a buttercream Rose!

*addtional note* I know my cake is all different colours and nothing matches but i didn't want to make new icing and have all the previous stuff go to waste so I used up what I had. After all its all about the Process..... right Margene??