Flower Pot Cake - A Decorating Tutorial

Here is a mini flower pot cake I made not too long ago. It was pretty easy to make, and I used store bought gum paste roses for the flowers.

A flower pot shaped cake with purple roses and white filler gum paste flowers

I call this a mini cake because the height of the flower pot was only three and half inches and the bottom diameter was only 3 inches. See how I made this cake in the sections below and you can always replicate the steps to make a large flower pot cake.

How to Make a Flower Pot Cake

These were the main supplies I used to make this cake:

Cake - the flower pot was carved out of 2 layers of pound cake measuring 4 inches in diameter.
Buttercream - I used vanilla buttercream to fill the cake as well as to crumb coat it.
Fondant - I used Satin Ice fondant and tinted it with a very small amount of brown and black gel paste colors.
Cardboard - I used cardboard to cut out 2 circles which I used as a guide to carve the flower pot.
Chocolate sprinkles - I used chocolate sprinkles as the soil in the flower pot.
Gum paste roses - I used store-bought roses for this project. The flowers were originally white, and I dusted them into dark purple roses. Click here to see how I dusted these flowers from plain white flowers to dark purple ones.
Lollipop sticks - I used these sticks to prevent avoid poking the wired flowers directly into the cake. See below for how I did it.

And this was how I assembled the cake:

I prepared the flowers in advance. These were plain white roses and I dusted them into a deep purple shade with petal dust. Click here to learn how to dust the flowers.

I also prepared the cardboard templates in advance. I drew 2 circles, one in the same diameter as the cake, i.e., 4 inches and the other slighter smaller, i.e. 3 inches in diameter. I folded each circle into 4 and poked a hole right in the center.

2 round grey card boards with holes in the center

Next was the cake. I baked 2 cakes in 4 inch round pans. The cakes were about 1.75 inches high each. Once baked and cooled, I leveled the tops.
And then I carved the cakes to form the shape of a flower pot. To do that, I made a structure as in the image below. I placed the larger cardboard template on a drinking glass and inserted a wooden skewer in the center hole.

I then poked both my cakes through the skewer.

2 layers of cake stacked on a drinking glass

Carving the flower pot

To carve the cake into a flower pot shape, I placed the smaller cardboard template on top of both the cake layers as shown. Using the cardboard templates as a guide, I carved the sides of the cake.

Carving a cake with a long serrated knife

Once the carving was done, I lifted the top layer, spread some buttercream, and then put it back on the first cake layer. I smoothed excess buttercream as shown.

A sandwiched cake covered in buttercream crumb coat

Next, I lifted the cake off the glass, removed the cardboard templates and the skewer. I placed in on a turntable and crumb coated the cake with buttercream.

After the crumb coat, I covered the cake with brown fondant. I trimmed off excess fondant and then turned the cake over.

A flower pot shaped cake covered in brown fondant

Next, I attached a strip of fondant all around the top with a damp brush. Following that, I filled the top generously with chocolate sprinkles.

Chocolate sprinkles on a flower pot shaped cake

Adding the flowers

Once the flower pot was done, I moved on to the flowers. Since the flowers were wired, I did not want the wire to go directly into the cake. To ensure that, I used lollipop sticks.

Holding a purple gum paste rose with bent wire

Holding a purple gum paste rose in a lollipop stick

I inserted the wire of each wired flower into one lollipop stick. Only then did I poke the flowers into the cake. This way, there was no direct contact of the wires with the cake.

A purple gum paste rose poked into a flower pot shaped cake

I arranged the roses in a circular pattern on the outside and then filled the center of the pot with 3 roses. That filled most of the flower pot, leaving only tiny spaces in between the roses.