Elegant Birthday Cake (How to Make)

🧾Supplies Required

• Cake – I used my eggless chocolate cake recipe for this project. It was baked it in two 6 inches round cake tins. 
• Cream Cheese frosting – I used this to fill the cake layers as well as to cover the cake. 
• Serrated knife – I used this to slice each of the 2 layers of cakes into 2 resulting in a total of 4 cake layers for the project.
• Roses silicone mold
• Fondant – This was used for the roses, leaves, and the letters on the cake. I used Satin Ice in white and tinted it into violet and green.
• Food coloring – Wilton Violet, Wilton Pink, Wilton Juniper Green
• Teardrop plunger cutter – this was used to make the fondant leaves on the cake.
• Cornstarch – I used cornstarch to dust my silicone mold. You can also use icing sugar for dusting.
• Needle scriber tool– This was used to make the veins on the leaves.
• Sugar craft knife
• FMM Block Letters cutter set
• Silver dragees
• Icing scraper (tall)

👩‍🍳How to Make

Step 1: Bake and Frost the Cake

I started by baking the cake in 2 separate cake tins. Once baked, I leveled the cakes and then sliced each cake into 2 layers. That means I had 4 layers of cake in total.

I sandwiched all the four layers with cream cheese frosting and covered the top and sides with the same cream cheese frosting. To achieve the ‘scraped’ icing look on the sides of the cake, I used my tall icing scraper and scraped the icing on the sides of the cake (while turning the cake on a turntable) as close as possible to the cake. And then I leveled the top but did not scrape the icing off.

Step 2: Make the Molded Fondant Flowers

Once the background was done, I made the flowers. The flowers were made using fondant and rose silicone mold.

The key to using the mold is to dust it well with powdered sugar or cornstarch. I chose cornstarch. I sprinkled the cornstarch liberally on it and tapped it on the table a couple of times to make sure the flour had a chance to fall into all the tiny nooks and corners of the rose mold.

And then, I turned it over, and tapped it on the table lightly to remove all the excess cornstarch, leaving just a fine layer of the flour in. Here is my comprehensive guide on how to use silicone molds for cake decorating.

After that, I pinched some of my fondant, rolled it smooth, and then pressed it into the mold. Make sure to press it in firmly as you want the fondant to go it to all the nooks and corners of the rose mold. This is important to ensure you get complete rose petals on your fondant.

Once firmly pressed, remove any excess bulges on the top and the sides of the mold before turning it over and carefully pushing the rose out using your fingers from the back of the mold.

You may need to twist and bend it to ease the flower out, and since it’s made of silicone, all the twisting and bending is perfectly ok with it.

Once the rose is out, place it on a cake board and allow it to sit for a while before brushing off all the cornstarch that  is visible on it. Brushing the flowers immediately after easing them out could leave the brush marks on the flowers as the fondant is still soft. Resting for a few minutes allows the flowers to set a little and helps in avoiding the brush marks.

I made my roses in 2 tones of violet. To achieve the tone of violet, I used a mix of Wilton Violet and Pink. I started with the darker shade and then for the lighter ones, I simply added some white fondant to it to make it lighter.

Step 3: Make the Rose Leaves

For the leaves, I used the largest of my teardrop plunger cutter and cut the leaves out in fondant (white tinted with Wilton Juniper Green color). I then used my needle tools to mark the veins on the leaves and then cut the rounded edges off with my sugar craft knife before attaching them to the cake. 

Step 4: Assemble the Cake

In assembling the cake, I started by arranging the flowers in alternate tones and then sprinkled some silver dragees on the inside of the roses circle. And then I added the leaves. The roses and leaves were attached with little dots of cream cheese frosting to held them stick to the cake. 

I also attached 2 roses and a leaf on the front side of the cake, right at the bottom. 

Step 5: Add the Cake Lettering

After that, I cut out the word “MOM” using my FMM Block letters alphabet cutters. I used the same shade of violet I used for the flowers. I rolled the fondant as thin as possible, and then let it sit for a few minutes to allow it time to set slightly before using it to cut the letters out.

Letting the fondant dry out a little before cutting helped and I was able to get the letter out perfectly. I attached these right in the middle of the cake. 

And with that, my elegant birthday cake was ready.