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!
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Thanks Carolyn! xo
I love this cake....so pretty and easy and I love the tutorial.....so helpful...thank you
Hi Linda! I'm so glad that you made the cake, it looks great!! xoxo