Hi, this is Nikki from Tikkido!
I originally made this cake for my daughter's 2nd birthday, a butterfly-themed affair we called "Tykki-dyw is Turning Two." (My daughter's nickname is Tykki-dyw, which means "butterfly" in Cornish.) This cake is time consuming, but not difficult, and the end result is so impressive! I was originally inspired by a Peggy Porschen design, and adapted it to suit my needs and the materials I preferred to use.
Materials Needed:
Cake base
Cakes
Cardboard cake rounds
Straws
Two batches of buttercream
Approximately 10lb fondant (8lb of which is made into fondant roses and leaf shapes)
Spatula
Long wooden dowel
Royal Icing (in piping bag, preferably)
Food Coloring
Artificial butterflies
Step 1, Plan the Size of the Cake:
I do my best creative work when I can play around with actual materials, so stacking cake pans turned out to be the best way for me to figure out what sizes of cakes I needed to bake. For this cake, I baked three 8" layers, two 6" layers, and one each of the 4, 3, and 2" diameter layers.
Step 2, Make Fondant Roses:
Make approximately 200 fondant roses to cover a cake this size. Gradation of color makes the cake much more interesting, so I made four batches of fondant, one with just a touch of Americolor Lemon Yellow food coloring, one with more intense Lemon Yellow, one with a light touch of Egg Yellow, and one with deeper Egg Yellow. This is the technique I use to make fondant roses. This process takes many hours, and can be done days or even weeks ahead of time. It is important that the roses be made at least several hours before placed on the cake, so that they have a chance to dry. If the roses are placed on the cake as you make them, they will compress under the weight of the roses above. It won't look as pretty, and you'll have to make twice as many roses. Trust me, you don't want to make more roses than strictly necessary.
Step 3, Stack Cakes:
Stack the cakes in a tower. It's important to note that you can't just stack cake this high without creating an internal support structure using straws or dowels and cardboard cake rounds. As a rule of thumb, for every four inches of height, you should have a layer of cardboard and supports. Here's a great video from the CIA showing the basics of engineering a stacked cake.
The cake won't look pretty at this point, and that's ok! Forge ahead.
Step 4, Carve the Cake:
Sharpen a long wooden dowel with a pencil sharpener, and push it down the center of the entire cake. Cut off any excess wood that pokes out of the top of the cake. The only reason we're doing this is to add stability, both when you carve the cake into the cone shape, and when you have to move the finished cake.
Use a large serrated knife to cut off excess cake, creating a cone shape. Again, it doesn't have to be perfect. Just get the general shape. Keep all those delicious cake scraps to feed the family or make cake balls.
Step 5, Crumb Coat:
Coat the entire tower of cake with buttercream icing. This is called the crumb coat, and as you can see, it's messy. Once again, you don't have to make it pretty or perfect. This just seals the cake and gives the fondant something to stick to.
Step 6, Cover with Fondant:
Color remaining fondant to match your darker roses. Roll fondant out, and cover the cone of cake. I'm like a broken record at this point, but it doesn't have to look great, really! You can see in the photo how I didn't quite roll the fondant wide enough and had to do a patch job. It's all going to get covered. This is not the time to worry about how the cake looks.
Step 7, Add Roses:
Use royal icing (colored to match your roses) to attach the roses to your tower of cake. Once all the flowers are placed, use royal icing or clear piping gel to fill in any gaps with the fondant leaves. Insert butterflies (found at any major craft store) so that they give the appearance of swarming around the cake.
I finish off all my cakes with a spray of Super Pearl Luster Spray and a sprinkle of disco dust edible glitter to give my cakes a little extra sheen and sparkle. It adds the perfect finishing touch, and makes the cake look much more professional.
This cake is time consuming, yes, but it's actually much easier to make something busy and completely covered like this look great than a supposedly "simple" cake. Have an imperfection in the fondant? Stick a rose on it! Indented the fondant with your finger? Stick a rose on it! And remember my favorite mantra in cake decorating: every cake has a back. It's a great comfort when things aren't going quite according to the plan in my mind!
Nikki Wills is the creative force behind Tikkido and Tradewind Tiaras, Inc. She loves decorating cakes but not eating them, can't sit still to watch a movie (drives her husband nuts), and has a deep and abiding love for Yorkshire pudding.
Nikki thank you for sharing this beautiful Rose Tower Cake!
Make sure to stop by Tikkido to see Nikki’s creativity like..
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How to Make a Mirrored Cake Stand
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