You can write any message you like on this distressed vintage chalkboard. It can easily be incorporated into the perfect theme to match your celebration, just by changing the floral accents and the words written on its invitingly smooth dark surface.
1. Stack and crumb coat your cake (see Buttercream Basics). Then make the chalkboard colour: blend the white buttercream by adding it gradually to a bowl containing the black buttercream. Start with 100g (31⁄2oz) and add only as much as you need until the black becomes deep grey. Then apply it to the crumbcoated cake. You do not have to smooth it yet, just even it out with a scraper.
2. Use the remaining white buttercream to pipe small blobs randomly all over the cake. Make sure you leave spaces in between and do not overdo it. Use the tip of your palette knife to spread the buttercream using small round or back and forth movements.
3. Use the non-woven cloth and lightly smooth the surface of the cake (see Buttercream Basics).
4. Draw an arch on a piece of baking (parchment) paper as a guide for where the top floral feature will go, and cut it out. Ours measured 20cm (8in) wide. Position it on the cake and use a cocktail stick (toothpick) to draw a guide mark, then remove. Repeat to create a guide for the lower floral feature, using the same paper guide flipped over.
5. Use white buttercream in a piping bag with a small hole at the tip, or use a Wilton writing nozzle no.1 or 2, to write anything you wish. For this cake we used the word ‘Love’. Make sure that it is positioned centrally between your arched guide marks.
6. Add some white scribbles, scrolls, hearts, dots, or leaves, to decorate your cake, but don’t go above the top arched guide mark or below the bottom one.
7. Using the dusky pink and star nozzle 16, pipe a very small swirl on the guide mark. Pipe more along the mark, leaving gaps for other flowers. Do this on both the arches.
If you accidentally made a mistake, just use the palette knife and blend the white buttercream into the black background. If you make a lot of mistakes and the background becomes too light, just add a thin layer of black buttercream on top and repeat the process. Since the background is black, once you have covered the cake, leave it to crust for three to four hours so that the black doesn’t bleed into the white writing and decoration.
8. Pipe small chrysanthemum flowers using chrysanthemum nozzle 81 and violet buttercream. Position the nozzle straight on to the cake with the curved part pointing away from the flower centre then gently squeeze the piping bag as you lift up and away slightly, releasing the pressure as you do so for each short petal. Pipe some short spikes in the centre using yellow.
9. Using light pink buttercream and flower nozzle 14, pipe the drop flowers by holding the piping bag at a 90-degree angle straight on to the cake, with the tip just touching the surface. Squeeze the piping bag as you gently turn it clockwise (counter-clockwise for left-handers) until it creates a flower then stop squeezing and pull the piping bag away. Add flower centres and simple petal strokes (see Piping Flowers) using yellow buttercream.
10. Add some dots and small leaves in between the flowers using light green buttercream. Use a piping bag with a small hole at the tip for the dots, and leaf nozzle 352 for the leaves.
