Elegant birthday cake for Mom. It took me quite a while to come up with the title for this cake. And finally, I settled with one that truly describes it – an elegant birthday cake for my elegant mom.
I made and decorated this cake for her 65th birthday last weekend. My mom is a vegetarian and so is my dad, but the rest of us siblings are not. And I have not really been into vegetarian cooking and baking. So it’s always a dilemma when it comes to birthdays for my parents. We often find it hard to get a cake that is eggless and homemade. My parents are very strict about home cooking. They are not particularly pleased if my siblings and I were to get the cakes from the store or elsewhere other than baked at home.
Elegant Birthday Cake for an Elegant Lady
Eggless Chocolate Cake Recipe
So last year, for Father’s Day, I decided to try and make an eggless chocolate cake. I have tried making a few before but the results had been inconsistent. So that sort of put me off in making eggless cakes until I tried the egg less chocolate cake for Father’s Day last year and it turned out so well. I tried the recipe again a couple more times after that just to make sure the results were consistent. And they had been. So, I am really proud to say that I have finally found an egg less cake recipe that is super awesome and one that I can count on to make and decorate for vegetarians.
So for my mom’s birthday celebration last week, I decided to use the same recipe and bake her birthday cake. My original egg less chocolate cake recipe is baked in two 7 inches round cake tins. For this birthday cake, I used the same recipe measurement but baked in two 6 inches round cake tins instead. That just meant that I had more cake batter in each tin. This in turn meant I had to cook the cakes slightly longer.
And of course, each of the cakes was taller compared to the ones I baked in 7 inch round pans. And that was the main reason why I wanted to bake in smaller cake tins – to get a taller cake. The truth is, I was worried that the cake might not be as moist as the 7 inches cake due to the longer baking time. But I was totally mistaken. The cake was still as lovely in taste and texture as the ones I bake in the larger 7 inches cake pans.
The Cake Frosting – Crusting Cream Cheese
For the frosting, I chose cream cheese frosting. The first time I made the cake, I frosted it with chocolate buttercream. But as I was eating the cake, I felt that cream cheese frosting would be a good pairing as well. So, for this cake, I used cream cheese frosting.
And since my mom is not a big fan of cake frosting, I choose to use minimal icing on the cake. For the rest of the deco, I used fondant and rose silicone molds to create the elegant roses on the cake. And then I added some green leaves and the word “MOM” to complete the cake. All in all, the cake (minus the cooling time) and all the deco was completed within less than 2 hours. And I was truly happy with how truly elegant the cake turned out in such a short time.
Pretty and Elegant Birthday Cake for Mom
Below are the full details on the supplies I used to make this cake and the assembly steps.
How to Make an Elegant Birthday Cake for Mom
These were the main supplies I used to decorate this elegant cake:
- 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)
And this was how I assembled the cake:
Baking and frosting 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.
The flowers
- Once the background was done, I made the flowers. The flowers were made using fondant. The first time I ever used the mold (even though I have had it with me for many years) was just a few weeks ago when I decorated a batch of decorated Easter Cookies. And I so loved the ease with which it could be used and how the roses turned out elegantly that I decided to use it again for my mom’s birthday cake.
A combination of purple and violet for an elegant birthday cake
Dusting the mold
- The key to using the mold is to dust it well with icing 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 to remove all the excess cornstarch, leaving just a layer of the flour in.
- 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.
Completing the flowers
- 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. Yup, the two tones on the cake are violet although the darker tone looks more like gray than violet. It was a pretty shade of violet in real life but somehow on the camera, it looks gray. 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.
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.
Assembling 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.
Pretty purple roses on my elegant birthday cake
The wording on the cake
- After that, I cut out the word “MOM” using my FMM Block letters alphabet cutters. I would normally use gum paste with these cutters as gum paste can be rolled really thin but since I wanted to use the same shade of violet I used for the flowers and since the amount to be used for the wording is so little, I decided to just do it with fondant.
- I rolled it as thin as possible, and then let it sit for a few minutes to allow it time to set slightly (similar to how I would use with gum paste – see my full post here on how to use these letter cutters) before using cutting 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.
Elegant Birthday Cake for MOM
And with that, my elegant birthday cake was ready.
Elegant Birthday Cake for My Mom
Happy Decorating 🙂
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