Elegant Birthday Cake

5 from 2 votes

Here's an elegant birthday cake I did for my mom. This was an easy cake to decorate but with awesome results. Check out my tips here!

Prep Time20

Cook Time30

Decorating time2

Total Time2 50

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: 6 inches round cake

Calories: 4587kcal

Teardrop plunger cutter (to make the fondant leaves on the cake.)
Cornstarch (to dust your silicone mold. You can also use icing sugar for dusting.)
Needle scriber tool (to make the veins on the leaves.)
Sugar craft knife
FMM Block Letters cutter set
Serrated knife (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
Icing scraper (tall)

Grease and flour two 6 inches round cake tins or grease and line them with parchment paper.
Mix instant coffee powder into hot water and leave aside.
Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt into a large bowl. Add castor sugar and mix well.
Make a well in the center and pour in all the wet ingredients (oil, water + coffee, milk, vinegar and vanilla extract).
Using a hand whisk, mix all ingredients until the batter becomes smooth and free of lumps.
Divide the mixture into prepared tins and bake at 175 degrees Celsius for about 30 minutes until the toothpick entered in the center of the cake comes out clean.
Remove cakes from oven and let them rest in the pans for 2 minutes before turning them over onto wire racks. Let the cakes cool completely before frosting them.

Once the cake are baked and have cooled down, level and slice each cake into 2 layers.
Sandwich all the four layers with cream cheese frosting and cover the top and sides with the same cream cheese frosting. To achieve the ‘scraped’ icing look on the sides of the cake, use a tall icing scraper and scrape the icing on the sides of the cake (while turning the cake on a turntable) as close as possible to the cake. And then level the top but do not scrape the icing off.

Next, make the flowers. You will need a rose silicone mold.
The key to using the mold is to dust it well with icing sugar or cornstarch. Sprinkle the cornstarch liberally on the mold and tap it on the table a couple of times to make sure the flour gets a chance to fall into all the tiny nooks and corners of the rose mold. And then, turn it over, and tap it on the table to remove all the excess cornstarch, leaving just a layer of the flour dust in it.
After that, pinch some fondant, flatten it and then press 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.
Make the roses in 2 tones of violet. Start with the darker shade and then for the lighter ones, simply add some white fondant to it to make it lighter.

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

In assembling the cake, start by arranging the flowers in alternate tones and then sprinkle some silver dragees on the inside of the roses circle. And then add the leaves. Attach the roses and leaves with little dots of cream cheese frosting to held them stick to the cake.
To complete the flowers decoration, attach 2 roses and a leaf on the front side of the cake, right at the bottom.

Cut out the word “MOM” using the FMM Block letters alphabet cutters in the same shade of violet fondant used for the flowers.
Roll the fondant as thin as possible, and then let it sit for a few minutes to allow it time to set slightly before using cutting the letters out. Letting the fondant dry out a little before cutting helps to get the letter out perfectly. Attach these right in the middle of the cake. And that completes the cake decoration.