The other day I asked if you liked to see images of fresh flowers on my social media. Thankfully it was a 98% vote in favour, I was so glad as I have a habit of showing you fresh flowers daily and I wont be stopping any time soon.

Since I moved to the Dorset countryside 2.5 years ago my love for gardening and growing cut flowers has increased massively. I always loved a spot of gardening, I was raised in the countryside so it was always in my heart but when I lived in London my garden was small and I hadn’t yet discovered a love for floral piping.

But then I found my dream home, it coincided with discovering buttercream flowers so I built a cutting bed with my son so that I could grow beautiful dahlias and other flowers and spread them around my home. I could fill vases in my kitchen and use the flowers as inspiration for my work. A bit like an artist might set up a still life.

When I first taught myself this gorgeous art I was at the very beginning, I was just learning the way to hold my bag the consistency of the buttercream and how to twist and turn to make the medium do what I wanted. Once I had mastered the basics I wanted to take my work to another level, not to just pipe the simple shapes to represent a rose, but to actually make the rose look like a rose. I found that as my skill progressed I just wanted to do more and more and to me that meant actually looking at the flower, the colours, the way the petals moved and the shading.

This way I could start to add more depth to my work and there’s nothing like having the real thing in your garden to look at when you are in need of inspiration.

Some days I wake up and I havn’t a clue what to pipe, all I need to do is walk outside and see what’s growing. Flowers constantly amaze me and as my love for piping them from buttercream has grown, so has my love for growing them! Its a viciously wonderful circle that I am absolutely loving and that’s why I want to share it with you. For an art that involves creating something so beautiful and tasty why on earth wouldn’t you want to be looking at the real thing too. My garden is and always will be my biggest inspiration.

I know and fully appreciate that some of you wont have big gardens or a place to grow your own flowers and so I will bring my flowers to you. Here in the UK we will have flowers that you may not have in your country, equally you have flowers that we don’t have and I love it when you all send me images of your native flowers, there’s always the next one to learn and be inspired by. Always the next piping challenge.

I get so excited to see what will come next and I am always striving to pipe new flowers, ones that I havn’t seen piped before or ones done my way, the Rachel way. I can spend hours experimenting some days, just working out which tip will pipe the petal shape that I’m after, mixing up the colours so that they are just right.

Once I get there I cant wait to share it with you via an online tutorial in my Cake School and by that time I’m itching to book in my cameraman so that I can show you all how to create that flower too. It makes me so proud and happy when I open up my socials and see you all piping my new design and creating stunning bouquets.

Below is a Ranunculus I grew in my garden this year, I’d never grown them before and this little flower just blew me away. Mere seconds after discovering it I’d mixed up my colours and was piping away. I got it wrong the first couple of times but third go and I had success.

If you ever need a little inspiration go outside and hunt down some real flowers, it is after all what we are striving to create. Delicious edible flowers. Give them movement, jiggle that hand a little and see where the buttercream takes you, take colours from more than one pot and mix things up a little. You never know the flower you create might just surprise you!

I will continue to share the flowers that I grow, they will be a daily occurrence in my feed and stories on Instagram @rachellesbespokecakes I really hope that what I share inspires you all too.

I love my job, it makes me happy. Flowers make me happy. Cakes make me happy

Rachel x