Sugar Flowers and An Amazing Birthday

July 15th, 2015

Sugar Flowers

Last year I decided to make my birthday cake. I was inspired by a beautiful cake by Sharon Wee, which had an amazing number and variety of sugar flowers on multiple levels of the cake. I had bought a number of new flower and petal cutters and watched videos, pinned websites and read books and tutorials on making sugar flowers. It took me a number of months to make them all. Each time my child went down for a nap, I would make some petals or assemble a flower, or colour flower paste.

Sugar Flowers

I tried a number of flower paste recipes, and I found I couldn’t quite get the right consistency. They would either dry too quickly and crack whilst I was using it, or take forever to dry and I couldn’t assemble a flower over a short period of time. Some also had issues with tearing whilst trying to thin edges. I am still on a look out for the perfect recipe.

Sugar Flowers

I haven’t had much experience with making cakes that are scrumptious – and can be made a couple of days in advance, and covered with ganache and fondant, and still taste great. So I decided to try a new white chocolate mud cake recipe and a new white chocolate ganache recipe (I bought some fondant). I tried very hard to make the edges on the ganache nice and sharp – it was extremely hot weather, and I just didn’t manage this. I also tried to get the edges of the fondant sharp, again with no success, and I tried to do a luster effect on the outside of the cake, which also didn’t turn out how I would have liked – perhaps I used the wrong brush, wrong ingredients or too small an amount.

Sugar Flowers

I also didn’t have the patience to make up some royal icing, and place the flowers into straws before inserting into the cake. The flowers weren’t in the cake very long, so we just ate around them 🙂

Sugar Flowers

Amongst the flowers I made were peonies, roses, freesia, Phalaenopsis orchids, cymbidium orchids, a magnolia and anemones.

Sugar Flowers

Apart from stressing myself out making the cake for my birthday, I had also made some Pavlova Ice cream, and also asked for help making our own waffle cones – not the best decision, due to the number of people eating ice cream, and the heat of the day. The main meal for lunch was slow cooked pulled pork and coleslaw rolls. All in all a wonderful day. My birthday cake for this year is unlikely going to have the same amount of time and effort put in 🙂

Sugar Flowers

Peony

Peony

Peony

Orchid

Orchid

Sugar Flowers

Orchid

Magnolia

Orchid

Poppy

Pavlova Ice Cream

3 Comments

  1. Maggie says:

    Just stunning! I can’t imagine having the patience to learn to do these, let alone end up with such a fabulous result…..

  2. Isabella says:

    What an amazing looking cake, you are very talented !!!!!

  3. Looks gorgeous and I imagine it tastes as amazing as it looks.

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