Happy 4th of July!  To celebrate this year, I wanted to try out the petal technique that has become very popular lately! 

To make this cake I made two 8 inch round cakes using my WASC white cake recipe,  I made two batches of my buttercream icing.  I crumb coated the cake and let it sit in the freezer for 20 minutes.  I followed the directions below, except I used three decorating bags with red, blue, and white frosting.

Here are the steps to use the petal technique

• Cover your cake with a crumb coat (very thin layer of frosting).
• Prepare a decorating bag with a large round tip (Wilton #12).
• Pipe a vertical line of dots on the side of your cake.
• Use a small spatula to press down on each dot, dragging to the right.
• Make another line of dots, just to the right of your petals. Repeat.
• For the top of the cake, I did the same technique in circles.
  A spiral would have worked even better.
• FYI, this cake will have a “back side”. When you get back to where you started,
  you will have a seam where the petals meet up.