Cake with Marzipan Tulips

First of all, it is only fair to say that decorating this cake was very time-consuming, at least for me. It is mainly due to the fact that I made all pieces from the first down to the last on my own. The tulips, the basket and the grass took me 3 hours to make (not counting in the baking of the cake itself :))). The truth is I was also very slow.


TULIPS – It is extremely easy to make a tulip.

• Petals: First you have to form a pink cone. Then use a scissor and cut half of the cone into four pieces. Now all you have to do is to form the petals as you see it on the picture. I also used modelling pick to be on the safe side. 
• Leaves: Same as the petals, but you should only cut the half of the cone into two.

This technique I found on Amanda Wood’s blog, Kneading My Dream. Her step by step photo tutorial is here.

BASKET AND GRASS

I used the following icing recipe: 100 g butter, 200 g icing sugar, 2 teaspoon milk and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. The butter should not be too hard or too soft, close to room temperature is fine. I just mixed all ingredients with a food mixer. First the butter, then the sugar, at the end the milk and the vanilla extract. If it is too liquid, you can add more sugar in it. Or as in my case, I put it in the fridge time to time as the kitchen heated up to 30 degrees (90 Fahrenheit).

In terms of quantity half of the above recipe is more than twice as much as you would need for the grass and the whole recipe is more than enough for the basket. You can use the remaining icing up to 1-2 weeks if you keep it in the fridge.

For the basket I used Wilton #47 pipe, for the grass Wilton #233 pipe and I learned this technique also on the 2-day training at http://www.desszertmester.hu/.

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I can say now that the base cake was my regular base cake as the family wanted again the blueberry mascarpone cheesecake. Three times in a row :))) However, this time the photographer was quick enough and made some photos between cutting and eating the cake.