Buttercream and Royal icing Decoration

One of the most difficult parts of the second year in pastry is to decorate a cake, piping, writing, etc, etc...
So I did two small duchesse cakes and decided to practice a little bit. 

The biscuit duchesse
6 eggs
200 gr sugar
200 gr flour

Beat the eggs with the sugar until it doubles its volume in and out of the gas, it should never pass 38 degrees, so warm to the touch. Keep beating till you can make a ribbon and stays for a little while.
Then,  add the flour slowly with a spatula.
Finally baked in a 200 C pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes or till it springs back when touched.

I used a 16 cm round form and an even smaller  form of 10 cm.

When the cakes were cool, I cut them in half and brush a syrup made with sugar, water and a bit of run. I fill them in with Vanilla French buttercream, the one made by heating a sugar syrup until it reaches soft ball stage and then whipping it into beaten egg yolks and soft butter.

Finally, the decoration, I did American buttercream and for that I whipped soft unsalted butter and sugar S° and a couple of spoons of milk till I obtained the consistency I wanted.
I crumb coated them and then let it sit till firm. I tried to put into practice what I learned in class two weeks ago.
I decorated the 16cm cake with black buttercream and on top piped roses. I didn't have much buttercream left to do the bottoms so I used the royal icing.

For the smallest cake, I used royal icing to pipe some forms. I tried to create some hearts and then add little dots..

Still lots to practice. I am considering buying dummies, because I can't continue making this amount of cake for two persons only, plus I am sabotaging my diet...