Sunflower Sheet Cake~Blog Tutorial

Hi everyone!

Today, we were in the mood for creating something bright and cheerful.  Sunflowers are my favorite, and so I've created a sunflower sheet cake tutorial for you!  It is a surprisingly simple look to create, but is sure to impress!

 

 

How to Make a Sunflower Sheet Cake

Here's how I made it....

First, I started with an 11x15 sheet cake, frosted with a crusting vanilla buttercream (like our Classic Vanilla Buttercream Frosting) tinted Americolor Sky Blue.  

Smooth however you'd like...I used the Viva paper towel method of smoothing.  (I almost went with a stucco textured look, which you could quickly do with your spatula-- so that's an option too!) ;0)

Here, I'm using a circle cutter to mark where my sunflower center will be on the cake.  My Sunflower will only be partially on the cake, so I only need the left side of my cutter.  (If you don't have a circle cutter, you can use the rim of a glass, or small bowl as your guide.)

I pressed (and mounded) mini chocolate chips into the semi-circle that I created on the cake.  This will be our center!  If you prefer a frosting center, a star or grass tip would give nice texture.

I also created a thick green stem, using a disposable piping bag (with tip snipped off), which was filled with (Americolor Electric) green buttercream.

 

 

Next, I filled a piping bag with a gold-yellow buttercream and used a Wilton round tip 10 to outline and fill in my petals.  I didn't use a template, just eyeballed it.  

Each petal is going to be a little different, but they are all fairly wide and become more tapered at the end.  I'm not worried about smoothing the petals, I'm going for a textured look which will become more exaggerated in just a minute ;0) --

 

 

(To achieve the golden color of our petals, I combined Americolor Egg Yellow with Americolor Lemon yellow.  Just go with whatever you have---Yellow with a touch of Orange will give you a similar shade.)

 

 

 

 

 

Here, I'm adding more texture and definition to my petals by dragging my small tapered spatula through the freshly piped petals. (If you don't have a tapered spatula, you can use a table knife.)

 

 

 

Using my same green piping bag, I piped a large leaf at the bottom of my cake.  I also added a few ladybugs!  The ladybugs are red buttercream piped from a small round Wilton tip 3.  

Their heads are black confetti sprinkles (from a shaker of assorted Halloween sprinkles), but you can also use black buttercream.

After the frosting crusted, I used a black food coloring pen to add dots, but that is optional ;0)

I also used a Wilton tip 3 to pipe dots here and there over the top of the cake, and finished with a small bead border.

 

That's all there is to it!

 

 

 

 

I hope that you enjoyed the tutorial!  The same techniques could be applied to round cakes or even cupcakes.  If you try it, I would love to see!

 

For our full collection of favorite recipes for cakes, frostings, and fillings, make sure to check out our Recipes Section! We also have a collection of hundreds of free step by step cake tutorials and free cake video tutorials in our Free Tutorials Section!  Enjoy!