After our trip to Keukenhof, I felt inspired by the spring flowers and all of the colors. I have one of the farthest things from a green thumb though so I decided to bake a flower cake instead! Anyone else out there who likes to bake as a way to deal with stress?
I have had these small flower pans for a while and only used them once so I knew they would be perfect for this cake. I wanted to have lots of colors though so after I made the batter, I divided it equally between 4 bowls and added about 6-8 drops of food coloring to each. I wanted the layers to have obvious colors but still feel light and like spring.
When you are using different cake pans from what the recipe is intended for you have to be very careful on the timing. I always use the time for the next closest sized pan (so a 9-in round) and subtract about 5 minutes so I can monitor it more closely.
As the cake cooled, I worked on my buttercream. I also wanted the buttercream to be soft pastel colors so after making the basic recipe (1/2 lb butter whipped until white peaks show then add in 1/2 lb +1/4 cup powdered sugar + 1 tsp Vanilla ) I divided it into 4 small bowls and added about 3-6 drops of food coloring.
I then layered the flower cakes to make sure that the colored cakes were not layered with their same colored frosting. If it were a round cake, I would have blended some of the frosting smooth along the outside of the cake but as it was more difficult with the flower shape, I decided to try multi-colored ganache instead.
The layers and edges of the cake didn’t allow for a traditional drip cake so I ended up doing a bit more of a splatter effect a la Jackson Polluck haha.
Seem like too much work? when you are putting this much effort into decorating the cake I think it is perfectly fine to just use a boxed recipe. These days it is almost impossible to tell the difference between boxed and homemade when it comes to a simple yellow/white cake. I tried a new homemade recipe with this one but there is no reason why you shouldn’t try a good Betty Crocker mix, I stocked up on some the next day so I don’t have to worry about making a cake from scratch when I don’t have the time!
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