Baby Poppy

When a girlfriend asked me to make her baby shower cake I of course said ‘yes!’. The cake was designed to match the baby shower invitation, with soft pinks and greens and big poppy flowers in honor of the little one - Welcome, Baby Poppy!

The cake is 7 layers of white cakes, alternating pink and white in color. The filling alternates between vanilla buttercream and raspberries between layers. The whole cake is frosted in more delicious vanilla buttercream, decorated with fondant flowers and assorted chocolates and sprinkles. The cake topper inscription is a thick paper cutout purchased from etsy.

Notes from the Kitchen

I visited a farm stand to grab fresh raspberries for the filling. With others to snack on…

To make the flowers, I made several petals from fondant.

I set the petals aside and worked on creating stamens and painting dusts on a test petal.

After a few hours, I gently peeled the petals off the shapers so they could cure overnight.

I finished painting and assembling the stamens.

Gettin’ ready to dust the petals! I chose 3 colors. First each petal got dusted with light pink front and back.

Then each petal got yellow streaks down the front.

I then dusted all the borders with a deep pink. Boom! Look at the before & after.

The petals, ready and waiting for flower assembly!

I love getting my hands ‘dirty’. I don’t mind at all that my fingers were super pink for a day or two after painting these petals. : ) What a fun reminder.

Guess what?! This was my first time assembling sugar flowers. I had some comparable experience to draw on, but it was still a bit nerve-racking. I think they turned out great, though, for my first attempt.

I want this cake to scream ‘baby girl!’ when you cut into it. So I made pink and white cakes.

I leveled each cake to 1.5”. Then torted them in half to .75” per layer.

Starting with a pink layer down, I topped it with buttercream.

I then added a white cake layer and topped with more buttercream and some fresh raspberry puree.

Following that same process, I alternated pink and white layers, ending with the last pink one on top.

I then crumbcoated the cake with more bc.

Because this cake is pretty tall, I added a dowel through the center to help stabilize for transport.

I then iced the cake thickly with more buttercream frosting.

I airbrushed the whole cake pink and then again with pearl sheen.

I piped swirls of buttercream and placed the flowers. Then I had oodles of fun placing other toppings, sprinkles, and dusts. :)

These are obviously the flowers. But I also made a green fondant pacifier, painted with luster dust, to add more ‘baby’ to the cake.

I pulled together an assortment of sprinkles, chocolates and toppings, not sure what I might use in the final piece!