The cake that is made to look like a basket weave always amazes people. I remember the first time I saw it, I had to know how in the hell was frosting manipulated to look like it was weaved into a basket good god! Well, since then I use it all of the time and use it as my "cheat cake" If I ever get a last minute we need this cake by tomorrow morning phone call, I use the basket weave and it has never let me down. I just made one and took step by step pictures to show how easy it really is. But alas.... I didn't take step by step pix of the flowers, so I'll just go ahead and get that for you next time. 

Step 1 a blank canvas. I spray a fine mist of water all over the cake and then go over it with my bench scraper and it gets it shiny and oh so smooth.

                                                                             

Using a star tip, I prefer to use at least a size 21, pipe a straight line down the cake from the top to bottom. Then pipe 4 straight lines across that line like below;                                                                    

 

Next, pipe a line that goes down the 4 horizontal lines from the top to the bottom of the cake. Being sure that it lays on top of the 4 lines. Then, pipe 3 lines that start from the first vertical line that you piped on, like so...

Then just keep repeating all around the cake. Don't worry if your lines don't match when you get to the end of piping around the cake, just fill it in accordingly and you can cover any "mistakes" with flowers you will pipe on shortly. You can fix anything with frosting... and a diet coke

Now, here is where I suck. I didn't bother to take step by step pictures of piping on the flowers, ivy and leaves. Never fear, I'll no doubt make another cake soon and get those pix up! But you can see from this side shot, any "mistakes" that may or may not have been made are covered up in an array of beautiful flowers for all to enjoy. 

 A slanted side shot that I thought looked cool

The top of the cake. Clearly this cake was for Mary. If writing on a cake scares you, don't let it. It definitely takes practice but I learned that if I let the frosting fall onto the cake from the pastry bag, as if I am writing in air, it tends to work out a lot better and not look like a serial killer has wrote on the cake.