Cherry Blossom Cake

A few months ago it was a good friend's birthday and I offered to make her birthday cake. She was really my guinea pig, I wanted to try to decorate a cake for the first time instead of just cupcakes. I kept it simple and as it was spring, decided on a Cherry Blossom cake.

She said she liked vanilla cakes so I made her a 2 layered sponge cake and to add a bit of depth to the flavour, I put chocolate ganache in between the layers and on the top before I iced it.


I made Swiss Meringue buttercream for the icing which made smoothing the cake a lot easier but it still took a long time to get it to look half decent. There is probably a technique to get it done better and quicker so I need to start taking lessons. So when I do it, it takes a lot of smooth and getting the nicks filled. I hate seeing a little dink in it.

After that it was time to draw the trunk and branches with icing that I tinted brown. I just used a #6 round tip to do the trunk and fill it in. After that I ran a warm teaspoon (using the handle end) to run over it to smooth it out. It turned out quite well this way, it made the trunk look grooved. Next I used a smaller round tip to draw the branches and worked some leaves onto them so the flowers will sit nicely above them.

I tinted the icing pink and piped the flowers all over the branches going for a full but not overwhelming blossoming tree.


As a final touch, I randomly piped tiny dots on the flowers in a darker pink tone. I used a #2 tip here.

The chocolate ganache had hardened a bit while in the fridge and hadn't softened enough by the time we cut the cake but all in all it was a good dessert. My friend was very happy with her cake.