Sometimes called ‘Christmas rose’ or ‘Lenten rose’, the hellebore is a very elegant flower with five showy petal-like sepals surrounded by leafy bracts. Some have flowers with a red-brown edge, others are pastel shades, purples or green.
1. Fill a piping bag with the light green and dark pink buttercream (see Two-tone Effect), then holding the nozzle at a 20 to 30 degree angle, pipe a fan-shaped petal (see Basic Petal Strokes).
2. Repeat the same process and pipe five or six subsequent petals that each slightly overlap the previous one.
3. Pipe a guide circle in the centre with about 20 short lines radiating from it, using green buttercream in a piping bag with a small hole at the tip.
4. Pipe very short lines perpendicular to the green lines, using yellow buttercream in a piping bag with a small hole cut at the tip.
5. Pipe one ring of green spikes around the inside of the guide circle. Then use yellow buttercream to pipe the rest of the spikes until the centre is covered.
6. Using dark yellow buttercream, pipe random short spikes in the centre.