Sunflower Decorated Cake

For Jim's Mom's birthday, I was in charge of bringing the birthday cake.

I decided to go with a sunflower themed cake for the occasion. It seemed like a fitting cake style for our country living, Kansas grandma. I love all things Sunflowers, so I was excited to make this cake.

Being the procrastinator that I am, I put off decorating the cake until after we returned from church. Being that the birthday party was a lunch event, I really had to hurry to get the cake iced. It's not my neatest work, but luckily, it was a really easy cake to decorate.

The cake is just a Betty Crocker cake mix. I think it's the Triple Chocolate flavor. For the frosting, I made two batches. The first batch is just a typical butter cream and the second is a chocolate fudge frosting. I divided the butter cream into two bowls and tinted them green and yellow using Wilton food color gel. The yellow is a mixture of Pretty Peach and Lemon Yellow to achieve a darker yellow color for the sunflower petals.

Starting with the furthest layer, I piped on the green leaves at the bottom. Next came the back layer of sunflower petals and then the top layer of petals. After finishing the petals, I added some additional peach coloring to the frosting to make the darker color for the outlines. I outlined the sunflower petals and then used a star tip to pipe the chocolate fudge frosting for the center of the sunflower. I think chocolate chips would also make a really neat sunflower center.

For the leaves and petals, I just snipped the corner of a plastic baggy off to apply the frosting and then spread with a knife. I didn't feel like getting my pastry bags and tips dirty. I'm so lazy sometimes. If I had used a tip, the results would have been much more detailed. But for a family birthday party, this method was quick and easy.

Sunflower Living and Sunflower Baking - I think I may have a sunflower problem.