In the Kitchen | Testing for a Daisy Wedding Cake

In a few short weeks my brother will be getting married.  I made my own wedding cake, and have made some fun cakes for the kid's birthdays since then so I offered to make my brother's cake as well.  They have picked daisies as their flower, so I figured a daisy cake was in order.

Being the procrastinator that I am, I've only just recently started working on the practice cake.  Piping flowers is new to me, so this has been an adventure so far.  I need to make the flowers in advance so I can put the cake together really quickly the day before the wedding.  So, I went to my Wilton cake decorating book (inherited from my mother-in-law) to get a recipe for Royal Icing.

Royal Icing
3 egg whites (at room temperature)
1 pound (about 4 cups) confectioners sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

Combine ingredients and beat at high speed for 7 to 10 minutes.

Yield: 4 cups




Pretty simple recipe!  The catch is that this icing dries very quickly so you need to keep your bowl covered with a damp cloth.  Also, you need to use this icing right away since you cannot rebeat it.

I piped my daisies on a flower nail, gave them yellow centers, then laid them to dry on my flower molds.  These are curved to give flowers a nice curve, rather than being flat.  My daisies were dry in about a day and ready to put on a cake.

The bride (who is actually a friend of mine) does not like anything too sweet so she requested something other than a buttercream frosting for the cake.  Specifically, she wondered if a Whipped Cream frosting would work.  Since I've never made a whipped cream frosting it was back to the Wilton book.

Well...I tried their recipe but was not really happy with the results.  I'm sure part of the reason was my inexperience with this type of frosting.  But it was edible, though a little hard to work with, so I frosted my test cake anyway.

Now to decide on a look for the daisy cake.  I'm thinking of two different approaches.

1. Wrap a ribbon around the base (represented by a piece of yellow paper in my picture) of the cake that matches the ribbon used in the flowers.  Place daisies around the upper edge of the cake and a little pile of daisies on top.

Same option, close-up:

2. Begin with a pile of daisies on top of the cake, then arrange them so they cascade around and down the cake.  This one was a little tricky to show because my test cake was a little small.

What do you think is the better option?  More orderly daisies in a row with ribbon, or a casual cascading pile of daisies?

Disclaimer:  You'll have to excuse the messy frosting job, the recipe I used was very difficult to smooth.  The recipe also had gelatin in to stabilize, which turned into little chunks when added to the cream. I need to experiment a little more with the frosting.  Chunky and hard to spread and smooth just won't do :)

This post will be linked at:

• Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts
• Wow Me Wednesday at Polka Dots on Parade