I'm very disappointed in myself. My mother is turning 50 on Friday, but she works everyday this week except tomorrow, so I made her cake today.

Everything went well until I tried making these darn buttercream roses, leaves, buds & Happy B-day message on the cake. My icing kept melting, my roses kept falling off. I messed up the message. My "rope" border fell down. My basket weave kept breaking/falling. I'm just frustrated.

I'm so sad. I'm ashamed to give her the cake, let alone share it with you ladies. Tell me what you guys think. Granted, today is my very first time making roses. I watched youtube videos, read Wilton's website just to learn how.

I think your mom's going to love that cake in all of its chocolatey goodness!!! You did a fine job with the roses if that's your first try -- I'm not much better after my 101st try. Don't be so hard on yourself.

this cake looks delicious!!! and i think ur roses are pretty...not bad for a first time!! and learning on your own...practice makes perfect...even the most professional of cake decorators didn't just pick up a bag of frosting and started creating...give yourself time...and don't be so hard on yourself!!! it is a beautiful cake and i am sure it is super yummy and i can see the L-O-V-E oozing off of this cake!!!!

I agree, your mom is going to love the cake. Those roses are better than my first attempts too. And you know what she is going to love the absolute most......... that you took the time and put your love into making this especially for her. Ashamed? Holy cow, you should be so proud of showing your mom how much you love her by making her a special cake. She will adore it, and you for making it for her.

Mom's love whatever their children make. If she is busy with work I'm sure she'll be thrilled that you took the time to make it for her. It may not meet your "decorator" expectations but I would love a piece right now, it looks delicious! You probably just need your frosting to be a little stiffer and with roses it's just practice, practice, and more practice. You're off to a good start, keep it up!

Thanks Everyone
I didn't know anyone responded b/c I didn't get the email notifications. My mom loves chocolate. She wanted chocolate everything. I haven't tasted it yet, but I will be sure to let you guys know how it tastes. Right now it's in the refrigerator cooling... It's still really warm in my house.

I have to make my MIL a cake for her 49th birthday on the 22nd. She's coming over to spend the holiday's with us. My hubby wanted me to bake her a cake as well. Hopefully, I will not have the same problems. I just got to figure out how to prevent my frosting from melting.

I used a stiff icing, I even added more sugar to it to stiffen it up. But after a few minutes the icing in the decorator bag started softening up. Then as I made the roses, they fell off the flower nail. I'm going to eventually take a Wilton class. But for now, I will learn as much as I can on my own or buy watching youtube videos. I commend all you ladies who does this for a living.

I had trouble with my icing melting when I used a recipe with butter in it. I switched to Indydebi's recipe which is all shortening and now I can make roses without having to freeze the center cones first.

Texas_Rose, Can I have the recipe? Is it the same as regular butter cream, but without the butter or do I need to add more sugar & vanilla?

Here's a link to the recipe a previous poster mentioned:

http://cakecentral.com/recipes/6992/indydebis-crisco-based-buttercream-icing

Great News,
My mother loved it. We surprised her with cake and decorations. She loved it. The cake was surprisingly moist. You know most chocolate cakes are dry. This was very moist. Tasted like chocolate ice cream.

JGMB, Thanks for the stiff butter cream Recipe. I will try it the next time I make some buttercream icing. I have to look up Dream whip.

Artese,
You hang in there.. and keep doing what you are doing... I didn't take my first class until I had been decorating cakes for 23 years...I don't reccomend waiting that long.. just for the fact that when you take a class (a good class) They teach you the right way to decorate and it is MUCH EASIER You will be so suprised. I remember the frist 30 min of the class saying "now that right there is worth the $350.00 I paid for this class!" (this was 5 years ago) ANywho... Your cake is/was beautiful and looked sooooo gooood and chocolaty.. Practice practice and practice you will do just fine... You have the "WANT" i CAN TELL...

OH ANother thing about taking classes... you will make lifelong friends... kindred spirits!! I did!!

I am so glad to hear your mother loved her cake. I knew it all along, but I also know that insecure feeling that comes with our cakes. Very good, and thank you for letting us all know.

Now on to your mother in laws cake.

The cake looked delicious and always remember moms love everything their children make! I bet she was very proud of you

it looks YUMMY!

you did a great job for a beginner!

i have hot hands, so the icing gets melty on me too...a million years ago ...before CC i emailed earlene...she told me to have two bags, and keep one in the fridge while i was using the other one, and when that one gets hot, switch.

your first roses look a lot better than mine did.

Hello Ladies,
Thanks again for all of your support, comments & suggestions. I really, really, really do appreciate all of the feedback I get from you lovely ladies (& gents). I have to make my MIL a birthday cake. Hopefully, I won't have hot hands and I'll try a stiffer icing. So, be on the look-out for my MIL birthday cake. It's going to be in the next week or two. It's a surprise.

It looks just great, and I feel your pain about the roses.

One tip I've read is to freeze water in a baking pan, have 2 bags of frosting ready to go, and keep alternating them from on top of the ice.

Good luck on your MIL's.

I was going to say the same thing as littlecake. Some people's hands are hotter than others. This in turn melts the icing. Keep an extra bag handy in the fridge or put the bag in the fridge to stiffen it back up. As a mother, I would have been proud to recieve that cake for my birthday. I am always incouraging my kids to cook/bake. That would have been a very proud moment for me indeed. Keep on trying, sweetie. It's just like anything else in this world worth doing, it takes practice, practice, practice.

Artese, if it makes you feel any better here, I have taken all of the Wilton classes, watched just about every tutorial on Youtube and still after the 100 millionth time practicing I still can not make a good buttercream rose and anytime I get someone asking for a cake the first question out of my mouth is" you don't want roses on it do you?" I still make cabbages for roses. They are probably the hardest thing for me to make. Good luck and keep practicing, I sure will and maybe in a few years I will get it right. Your cake looks great and I am glad your mother enjoyed it in all of its chocolate glory. I know I sure would.

You did an awesome job. The roses look great! The same thing happened to me with my first batch of buttercream. We decorated in class and icing kept sliding off, by the time I got home the icing had completely come off the cake! I tried 2 different recipes until I found one that worked for me. Once you have the recipe down right, everything else seems to work out with practice of course!

Thank you ladies. I'm about to start working on my roses b/c my MIL birthday is coming up and my hubby is picking her up a few days before Thanksgiving & he wanted to surprise her with one of my cakes. I'm going to attach the cake that I was trying to emulate, but it didn't come out quit right. I was just googling and did a search for Chocolate birthday cakes and this is what I found. I don't know who made them or not.



Disclaimer: If you are the creator of the attached cake, I'm borrowing it. please let me know who you are so I can credit you.