Bake bloomin’ lovely Chelsea inspired cakes

With gardens erupting into bloom, May is one of the most exciting times of the year for gardeners. The annual Chelsea Flower show is an important event on calendars not only for gardeners, but also for cake decorators seeking inspiration from summer gardens and the natural world. Here are our favourite five floral cakes for you to experiment with and enjoy.

Flower Cake

Impress any garden party-goers with this lovely floral centrepiece. A tall cake will give you the chance to show off your characterful icing blooms. The key to creating the right impact is to ensure you cover your cake crisply and cleanly with ready-to-roll icing by using the sugar cream to help the icing adhere and to iron out any lumps and bumps. For your flowers, choose the ready-to-roll icing in your preferred colour scheme, perhaps to reflect that of the host’s own garden, and then get busy with leaf and flower cutting. Allow your shapes to set before applying them to the cake with royal icing and then piping the stems on.

Painted flower cake

You don’t need to be a great artist to achieve the finish on this painted cake. Again, the smooth finish of the icing is important since it is your canvas. Practise painting your blooms onto a scrap of icing first, and plan how you’re going to space out your flowers by making a subtle mark on the icing. If you’re not confident drawing freehand then make a gentle impression onto the cake with a flower cutter. The delicate effect of hand-drawn flowers will evoke the spirit of Chelsea at any celebratory event.

Painted flower cupcakes

Cupcakes are a firm favourite and each of these painted cupcakes allows an individual expression of creativity. You could even design a unique flower for each of your guests. Again, you can use a stencil, a cutter, or draw freehand using a clean, fine paintbrush to create your miniature blooms. These exquisite cupcakes are perfect for summer celebrations and winning prizes at any summer fete.

Marzipan flower cake

Summer is wedding season, and flowers remain a firm source of inspiration to cake decorators looking to make the most memorable wedding banquet centrepiece. This exquisite vintage-inspired cake uses marzipan instead of ready-to-roll or fondant icing to make the rose petals. Roses perfectly embody the spirit of summertime and everyone has a favourite colour rose. Using marzipan as a material allows for subtle colour variation so you might decide to mix roses in different hues of the same colour, or you could elect to mix different colours entirely as pictured here.

Flower cake pops

If you’re looking to create a little fun, cake pops make a great party flavour for any occasion. Popular with kids and adults alike, cake pop can be as individual as each of your guests, plus you can play around with the sponge and make the flavour pops your guests will love. Choose a variety of colour melts to vary your cake pop colours and use a cake cutter to create the shapes you would like to top off your pop.

Have fun with your floral inspired baking this summer and explore our
recipe archive for fun ideas for every occasion.