I had a cake tasting for a wedding with my sister's friend last weekend. And since the smell of spring is in the air, I was inspired to make flower cakes as samples. I wanted the bride-to-be to taste two of my basic cake flavors, so I made one vanilla and one chocolate cake. I wanted it fast and easy and, so I made it all the decorations in buttercream.
These cakes reminds me of an
impressionistic painting of a garden by Claude Monet
. On most of his garden paintings, one can see just clusters of colors to suggest the flowers. But when one steps back to see the bigger picture, it is actually a garden.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR ALL BUTTERCREAM FLOWER CAKES
I chose the pastel colors of pink, purple, yellow and green to color the buttercream.
The first buttercream flower cake I made was a 5" chocolate cake.
I used chocolate buttercream with tip#47 to make the basketweave effect on the side of the cake. As you can see in the photo, I crumb coated it first to keep the crumbs intact.
With pink buttercream and tip # 104, pipe a rose. Using a spatula transfer the rose to the cake and use another spatula or knife to help ease it out of the spatula on to the cake. Make a few more roses and place randomly on the cake.
Using green icing with tip #18, pipe a few vines or leaves on the cake. Actually, it is best to do this before placing the flowers on the cake.
Make a chrysanthemum, using tip# 81 with yellow icing. To pipe the flowers, position the tip on a 45 angle and with heavy pressure first then pulling away as you finish the petal. Pipe the first layer of petal in a circle. Then add another layer of petal and so on until the top is covered. Place random mums around the cake.
With the purple icing using tip # 104, make a five petal flowers all over the cake. And voila you are done.
The second buttercream flower cake is a 6" sponge cake filled with orange marmalade buttercream.
I still wanted to make a basketweave on this one but I wanted it to look different. I used a leaf tip # 66 to pipe the basketweave.
Then with tip # 61 and yellow buttercream, I piped a cluster of petals starting from the top then from the side. Make more yellow clusters all around the cake.
With pink buttercream and tip # 104, pipe five petal flowers randomly.
With purple buttercream and tip # 104, pipe clusters of purple petal this time all over the cake.
No time to make a cake? Send them real flowers that look like cake!
