Carnations for Stephanie's mom

The beginning of this story goes back... way back. Earlier this year, I joined a book club. The books we have read have been very interesting, many of which are ones I never would have chosen myself but ended up loving. One of our most recent meetings was for the book "The Jefferson Key", and a big part of that book is pirates. Being the cake decorator I am, I made cupcakes - I used a box mix to which I added rum extract and then, I made this amazing spiced rum frosting. No recipe. I just made my usual buttercream and added rum extract, orange zest, baking spice and a touch of allspice. I baked the cupcakes in special pirate liners and put little flags on them.

Stephanie, one of the members of the book club, just fell in love with my spiced rum frosting. In fact, as we were leaving the meeting, she asked me if I could make a birthday cake for her mom at the end of September. She wasn't sure of the decorations yet, but all she knew was that she had to have more of that wonderful spiced rum frosting.

A few weeks later, we touched base again and she told me that she really liked the cake I made with the pink carnations and ribbon curls on it and wanted something similar, but without fondant - just lots of frosting.

I was beyond excited. The last time I made gum paste carnations was two years ago when I made them for my final cake decorating class. They were so much fun to make, but in the past two years, I haven't had any requests for that specific kind of flower. Until now. With this being a 6 inch cake, I made only three flowers, and dusted them with purple luster dust since purple is Stephanie's mom's favorite color. I even brushed the ribbon curls with it too, to give them a bit more sparkle.

And since Stephanie loves the frosting so much, I decided to cut each of my two layers in half to give her four layers of yellow cake and three layers of the yummy spiced rum frosting that she loves so much.

Happy Birthday Stephanie's mom! I hope you loved the frosting as much as your daughter does!