[Aliantha]

Lace is really simple these days. You can still do it by hand, but I doubt that anyone does other than for competitions. These days you buy a silicone mat and pour a lace liquid (there are a number of different brands) then scree it off, let it set - either in the air or quickly in the oven at a low heat (which is usually how I end up doing it because I never get my shit together early enough to air dry it, and it takes 8 hours or so to set by itself, which means refrigerating the mix then bringing it up to room temp to use etc. If I do it in the oven it takes about 10 mins and I can just leave the bowl of lace mix on the bench while that happens so I can do the next batch. For larger cakes it's usually necessary to do several lots of lace because the molds are not long enough to go around the whole cake.