A very Miami dessert - chocolate cake with coconut buttercream icing.

palm tree cake, originally uploaded by retrogemkitty7.

I'm taking a cake decorating class (Wilton, Course 1.) Here's my first attempt at a fancy cake. Since we went to Maui on our honeymoon & love going to the beach in Miami, I decided to do a palm tree design. The icing colors definitely remind me of the Art Deco district in South Beach!

I had a terrible time with crumbs showing through the icing, but a couple of the women in my class said the little flecks remind them of sand. Our instructor said I should have used more icing. What? More buttercream? No problem! The palm tree design is a stencil I found online (yay, Google!) You trace the design onto wax paper & then go over the outline (though not on the pencil marks, use the reverse side) with a wonderful goo called piping gel. Then, you flip the design over onto the iced cake & use a small brush to get the outline to transfer. Following that, you're ready to fill in the outline with your tinted buttercream.

At next week's class, we'll attempt to make buttercream icing roses... watch this space for the results!