5 delicious Mother’s Day bakes

It’s the fourth Sunday after Lent and while you may have been going easy on the sweet stuff there’s no reason why your dearest maternal figure shouldn’t enjoy something beautifully baked with her afternoon tea on Sunday 6 March. It’s Mothering Sunday, or Mother’s Day so that means treating your lovely mum to a day of respite, relaxation and tasty treats. We’ve assembled some of the cakes and baked delights that we think mums everywhere will love.

Painted Flower Cake

This exquisite painted flower cake is guaranteed to delight every mum. The key is in getting the fondant-icing base as smooth as possible, which allows for a perfect canvas on which to paint your flowers. You don’t have to be a great artist to paint your blooms onto the cake, and your designs can be as simple or as complicated as you like. Certainly you can vary your palette according to your mum’s favourite colours or flowers. Painting this cake is an ideal opportunity to be creative, but if you’re nervous about making a mistake then you could experiment with stencils, or you can trace the outline directly onto the cake by making gentle impressions with tiny cutters. Complete the look with a silk ribbon for the perfect mother’s day bake.

Flower Biscuits

A plate or little stack of simple but beautifully iced biscuits make a lovely accompaniment to afternoon tea, or presented tied up with a silk ribbon. Just pipe a little royal icing into floral shapes and use a delicate paintbrush to create the texture by swooping the icing into the centre of each bloom. It’s a simple technique but it looks very effective, so you don’t have to be a great artist to achieve great impact. Gentle baby blue and pink fondant is very appealing but you can use your mum’s favourite colours instead if preferred and there are over 30 colours from which you can choose.

Princess Gateau

The sugary dome of the princess cake is one of the most beautiful marzipan feats to behold – and the most delicious to eat. It’s all about creating the perfect sponge dome shape and ensuring the cake’s contours are smoothed over with crème patisserie before you lay over the supple marzipan. Our videos will help you with the techniques you’ll need to create the perfect finish for your cake. The final decorative element is the soft pink marzipan rose which complements the soft green marzipan beautifully. Discover how to make one.

Flower Cake

Every mum would love to get flowers on Mother’s Day, and what more delicious way is there to offer a bouquet of spring blooms than on a cake? Choose her favourite fondant icing colours and select some small flower and leaf cutters to assemble your display. Don’t forget to allow a little time for your blooms to set for them to better adhere to the cake without ‘wilting’, and a little delicate piping will do nicely for the stems. This is a really lovely celebratory cake that is sure to go down a treat with a pot of tea on Mothering Sunday afternoon.

Ombre Cake

For spectacle alone this ombre cake – or trio of cakes – is a magnificent showstopper. The effect is created by the subtle graduations of colour in the icing, of course. It’s up to you whether you decide to ice a trio of cakes, or just the one or two layers, but the impact of the icing work is very effective. Follow our instructions carefully to ensure you can create the best effect. No mother could fail to be entirely delighted when presented with this lovely centrepiece.

For more baking inspiration visit our recipe and blog pages.