This weekend saw a lift in temperatures and some gorgeous, much needed sunshine!
I've started to think about pastels, flowers springing up from the ground and indulgent cakes!
With Easter and Mother's Day there are plenty of reasons to make pretty cakes or cookies. Also if you have a birthday or 2 to cater for, you can completely indulge in all things Spring! The temperatures are pretty much perfect for decorating cakes, it's not too hot, so no worrying about fondant or buttercream melting and it's not too cold so that you have a renewed sense and appreciation of colour.
I'm sharing today some of the Spring style creations I have made over the years to hopefully inspire you in your latest cake decorating pursuit!
Let's start with the simple! If you aren't a cake decorator but still want to present a treat in a pretty way, you can't go wrong with swirls of buttercream, topped with a fondant flower. Here I used 2 colours of frosting swirled using the Wilton #2D tip. I then rolled out some coordinating fondant and using a fondant flower cutter, made enough for 1 per cupcake. It is hard to tell from the photo but I finished off the flowers with a little bit of edible glitter in the centres.
Sticking with the buttercream, a cake baked in a Spring shape with pastel colours can be all that is needed! This is such an easy design as all you need to do is fill in the shape with piped stars. To make the antennae I used 2 curved candles! Wilton tips 18 and 21 are good for this design. This pan is still available to buy and comes with instructions on how to decorate.
This is the same pan but this time it has been completely covered in fondant with cut outs for the body and wings. I used some two tone frosting to add detail to the wings and to give the cake a nice border around the base. The main tricky part of this design is to get your fondant smooth on the shape. Wilton do a book called Celebrate with Fondant which shows you the techniques needed to cover shaped pans. You can buy a copy here.
Here is a special birthday cake for someone with a Spring birthday. The cake is completely covered in fondant then some fondant balls and large sausage shapes are made to form butterfly bodies. The wings were made using heart cutters, Some pale green fondant was rolled out and cut with a small leaf cutter. When the butterflies and leaves had dried out, I was able to attach them to the cake with a little edible glue. I used edible food writers to give them happy faces and detail on the wings. Before adding the leaf border I used a combination of edible food writer and paste colours to draw flowers around the sides. The food writers were used for the outline while the paste colours (mixed with a little water) were used to paint in the flower heads. The final thing to do was to write a greeting on the cake again using edible food writers.
This one looks very involved (and I admit the bows were a pain!), but with the use of fondant cutters it makes it look like far more effort went into it then there actually was. Firstly the cake was covered in lilac fondant. Using the Wilton ribbon cutter I cut out some pieces in the same fondant and left them to dry using tissue and cardboard tubes to hold their shapes. I also made ribbon swirls by twirling the fondant around a pencil and then letting them dry. I cut out 2 butterfly shapes in yellow, gave them some details and set them on wire again to dry. While they were drying, I cut out flower and butterfly shapes in various colours, gave them each a little detail along with some leaf shapes. I used an edible food writer to create veins on the leaves. The flower shapes were added to the sides of the cake using edible glue, trimmed with the leaves. I attached the ribbon to the centre of the cake using edible glue and a little fondant to hold the pieces in place. Finally I added butterflies to the top and finished it off by adding the 2 wired butterflies and a liberal sprinkle of edible glitter!
If, like me, you are always looking at ways to do something new, you can sign up for a cake decorating course. Here I made a cake following instructions provided during a Wilton cake decorating class. This cake is a combination of buttercream and royal icing. All the flowers are made in royal icing following the Wilton method. The bluebirds were made using Wilton's Colour Flow icing. The basketweave (which I admit is not great on this cake) was made using buttercream.
This cake was a lot of work but the end result was so worth it. Sadly I have not had much call to make flowers out of royal icing but I hope that when I do they will look just as good.
This fun cake was inspired by a cake I found in a Wilton year book. You can get the instructions on how to make this cake online at Wilton.com here.
Tierd cakes always look impressive and are perfect for large gatherings and special events. This cake is incredibly simple to make but looks grand enough to fit the occasion.
Each of the 4 tiers were covered in pastel fondant and then stacked using a little buttercream to hold in place. I didn't actually need dowels for this cake as it was sturdy enough to take the weight. I then made a bunch of bead shapes for 2 of the tiers in matching fondant and created a border. With the other 2 tiers I rolled 2 sausage shapes in the same colour and then twisted them together to create a rope. This was wound round the base of each tier securing with a little buttercream or edible glue. I formed the numbers in fondant free hand (though cutters would work just as well) and attached them to the top with buttercream. I used edible food writers for the greeting and added flattened fondant beads to hold the candles in place.
Here we have another simple tiered cake. Again I didn't need dowels and stacked them using a little buttercream. I chose the same border as for the cake above, but this time I used 2 colours to create a different effect. I used a heart cutter to make lots of shapes for the sides of the cake in 4 different pastel shades. These were left to dry a little before adding to the cake using edible glue. The day I made this cake was very hot and my original plan for the number toppers did not work. I used number cookie cutters to make the numbers and left them to dry. I was able to stand them up on the top with glue and toothpicks!
I trimmed the top with some small butterfly shapes cut from 2 tone fondant, (I took 2 shades and rolled them together to create the effect) and added a large lollypop. Another cake which was actually very simple to decorate but looks far more involved!
This tiered cake was a little move involved but again the use of shaped fondant cutters helps to bring a polished finish to the cake.
I stacked 2 tiers after covering them in green fondant. I added large daisies and butterflies to the sides in pink and white. I added a few smaller daisy shapes and ribbon curls and trimmed each cake border in green, pink and white daisies .
The top tier represents a large cupcake and was made using a pudding basin and was placed on it's own cake board for stability. The sides were covered in fondant which were scored to represent a baking case. I used buttercream and the Wilton #2D tip to swirl a large amount of icing on the top. A fondant ball was made to look like a cherry and placed in the centre. A very small flower cutter was used to create sprinkles and the baking case was trimmed with butterflies, beads and flowers. I made matching cupcakes and wired flowers. It is still one of my favourite creations!
Cupcakes can create such a fun display and can look just as impressive as a large cake.
Here I made a bouquet out of cupcakes after seeing some great designs on Pinterest. Each cupcake was firstly lightly iced. Four were simply iced with a swirl of pink frosting. 3 were piped using Wilton #2D tip to represent hydrangeas. The remainder I decorated with fondant. I used the large daisy cutter to make the large purple fantasy style flowers and used gold pearls for the centres. I used the small flower cutter to make many yellow blooms to cover 3 cupcakes with gold pearl centres. The final 2 fantasy flowers were made using 3 sizes of petal cutters to create a layered effect. I used gold lustre dust to give the flowers some shimmer. Finally I rolled some long green sausage shapes to create some stems and laid them over 3 cupcakes vertically. I added a purple flower to the top cupcake to hide the join. The stems and some of the flowers were trimmed with leaves which I had also dusted with green lustre dust.
Finally we come to my favourites! These were very involved and took me many hours! I am a very slow cake decorator, but the end result was worth it!
I iced the cupcakes simply then rolled out some green fondant. I embossed the fondant with a floral embosser and cut out circles using a cookie cutter. I didn't want all the cupcakes to look the same so some were iced with grass using the Wilton #233 tip. I then set to work making fondant flowers and freehanded critters!
On the close up here you can see that the caterpillar is made using decreasing in size fondant balls. I gave the caterpillars a little flower hat! You can also see the flowers more clearly here. For some of them I used a fondant balling tool to thin and shape the petals to make them look more realistic. I also used a little bit of edible glue for the centres.
This rose was created using a petal cutter set that I have had for years! I cut out a variety of petal shapes, used the ball tool on them and then formed them around a cone of fondant.
My centrepiece was this little bluebird. I didn't follow a tutorial for him, I just studied the pictures I had found. He was pretty easy to make and sits on a floral branch!
It can't be Spring without some ladybirds! Again these were made simply by flattening a ball of fondant, adding a smaller ball for the head, a sausage for the back, and an edible food writer for the spots.
I had so much fun making these and can't wait to get stuck into this years creations!
Have you made some Spring themed cakes? Share them on my Facebook page!
Happy Monday!
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