Spring is in the air! I absolutely love this time of year, and am so inspired when the flowers and trees begin to bloom. It’s no coincidence that the cakes that I make in spring and summer tend to have more flowers also! Today’s cake features beautiful buttercream cherry blossoms and would work well for all sorts of special occasions, including weddings. The design looks impressive, but the technique for the buttercream cherry blossoms is actually quite simple! I hope that you enjoy the tutorial!
Materials
The cake in my tutorial is smaller than it appears. The tier sizes are 8 inch, 6 inch, and 4 inch. They are stacked using cake boards and bubble tea straws as supports. (See our tier stacking video if you have any questions about stacking.) – I used our Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream Frosting recipe.
Coloring Gels: Americolor Deep Pink, Wilton Rose, Chocolate Brown, Wilton Leaf Green
Piping Tips: Wilton (petal tips) 104 & 101, round tip 4,
Sugar Pearls (This is optional. You could also pipe white dots of buttercream into the blossoms with a small round tip.)
Waxed Paper
Rose Nail
Cookie sheet or tray for your blossoms
Small angled spatula (for textured design around sides of cake)
Misc: As usual, my tiers are resting on cardboard cake circles cut down to size, I used 7 bubble tea straw supports. Pedestal or cake base
Notes:
If using a crusting buttercream, an alternative to freezing is to allow your buttercream blossoms to dry on their waxed paper squares for at least 24 hours. Then, you can carefully peel from the paper and apply to the cake.
We chilled our flowers in the freezer for approx. 20 minutes. To keep condensation in check, I wouldn’t recommend freezing for longer than 30 minutes. If you’d like to keep the tray of flowers chilled while you work, but the decorating process is taking a while, simply move them to the refrigerator. They will remain firm until you need them.
My flowers were the slightest bit shiny as they returned to room temp, but the moisture quickly evaporated.
Please let us know if you have any questions!
Love, Love, Love this cake! This just went to the top of my “to do” list!
Thank you Dene!xoxo
Very beautiful! I love it! Simple and gorgeous! :)
Wow Melissa, that’s just beautiful. I will be keeping this one in mind for sure!
I really love the look of this cake. Simple yet elegant. Beautiful.
So pretty! ♢♡♡♡
Beautiful! I love decorating with buttercream. It is my favorite.
Beautiful cake Melissa, always ….. Big Sigh in wonderment! oxoxo
So so pretty ! Love it!
Hi Melissa how long can you put the buttercream in fridge or dry out before they need to be redone Im very slow love your work so much thank you pat
Hi Melissa! I want to use an all butter buttercream. Is it possible with this cake if it doesn’t crust much? Should I replace a bit of butter for shortening to make it firm enough for this design? Thank so much!
@Patricia- When your cake is decorated and you are ready to apply your flowers to the cake, you can freeze them for 15-20 minutes, and then pop in and out of the freezer as needed to firm them up. Air drying for several hours or overnight is fine. Refrigerating for several hours should be fine too although I’m not sure if they become firm enough to easily handle. Just see how it goes, knowing that you can pop in the freezer as needed.
@Coreen- All-butter buttercream should do just fine! They will firm up more quickly when chilled than flowers that contain shortening. Have fun!
Hi Melissa: I love-LOVE the rustic / modern look of this beautiful cake . I have a few questions:
1- How tall/thick are the cake pans you used?
2- How many cake layers you used for each tier ?
3- When stacking the tiers, did you insert a rod in the middle thru all the tiers?
4- Approximately how many people do you think this cake would serve?
Sorry for all the questions and thanks in advance for all you do!
Tammy
Hi Tammy, I’m glad you you like the cake!! Our cake pans for this cake are 4, 6 and 8 inches by 2 inches deep. Each tier has two cake layers and each tier is approximately 4 inches tall. When stacking we did not insert a rod in the middle. Each cake was on its own cake cardboard, cut down to size, and placed on bubble tea straws for support. We don’t always show the stacking method since we have a video on that topic. This cake will serve approximately 36 – 37 people. The 4 inch tier – 4 – 5 servings……..6 inch tier, 12 servings and the 8 inch tier 20 servings. On the homepage of the site under the MEMBER RESOURCES heading , click on HELPFUL LINKS to find the Wilton Serving Chart Guide. I want you to know that information is available to you, it could save you time in the future when that question comes up. Thanks for being a part of the site!
Good morning Melissa and Bebe, I attempted to pipe these blossoms into my rose nail last night, any ideas why my outer edges of my petals always come out jagged?
Hi Victoria, Yes, it is so annoying when the petals are jagged. This is a link to a February Forum post on jagged edges, Melissa and MsGF are giving their thoughts on this topic, https://www.mycakeschool.com/message-boards/search/ragged+edges/. Let us know if this solved the problem for you. I hope it will be helpful.
I used this technique on this simple baby shower cake.
Hi Claire, Lovely, there is beauty in simplicity. Thanks so much for posting this great looking cake!!