With this buttercream flowers cake you can have your flowers and eat it, too! It’s a simple chocolate cake frosted with American buttercream and topped with buttercream piped flowers.
A bouquet of flowers is great. They’re beautiful, they smell lovely, and it’s such a sweet gesture when you are gifted one. Unfortunately, you can’t eat it. I have a solution.
With this buttercream flowers cake, you can have your flowers and eat it, too!
Whether you’re celebrating Mother’s Day, birthday, retirement, new baby, or surviving Mondays, a cake is always a good idea.
When it comes to a labor intensive cake like this, feel free to use a boxed cake mix. No judgement here. We all do it.
Even after culinary school (and the hundreds of cakes I’ve made over the years), I have no problem with cake mix. If it makes you feel better, you can easily doctor up cake mixes to make it your own.
However, I highly advise against canned frosting. That stuff is way too sweet and loaded with too many preservatives!
Instead, whip up a batch of ridiculously easy American buttercream!
Components
This starts off just like any standard cake. Use your favorite box mix or favorite layer cake recipe. I used my go-to chocolate cake recipe and paired it with a super simple American buttercream.
If you have time, Swiss meringue buttercream is the best choice for piping. It is a very stable frosting that is far less sweet than classic American buttercream.
The key to decorating with buttercream flowers is preparation. In the beginning, piping flowers can be very frustrating and time consuming. It gets easier with practice.
Soft gel paste colors and Piping Tips used
- I colored the buttercream using Americolor soft gel paste.
- I used a #104 piping tip for the flowers and #67 piping tip for the leaves.
Notes for Piping Buttercream Flowers
Make sure you work in a relatively cool area. Room temperature or colder is best. Hot hands and warm ambient temperature will make working with buttercream a bit more difficult.
Pipe the flowers on little individual parchment (or wax paper) squares.
Let the buttercream flowers chill in the fridge or freezer until you are ready to decorate the cake.
By chilling the buttercream flowers, they will be a lot easier to work with and a lot less fragile. You’ll be able to pick them up with your fingers or use an offset spatula to set them on top of the frosted cake.
Here are some tutorials I find helpful:
- Wilton’s Buttercream Rose
- Buttercream Basics: How to Make a Buttercream Rose
- Buttercream Rose Tutorial
- How to Pipe Icing Roses
Buttercream Flowers Cake
Ingredients
Chocolate Cake
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, (260 g)
- ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder, (40 g)
- 1 Tablespoon instant espresso powder
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- ½ cup coconut oil, (113 g), melted
- 1 ¼ cup granulated sugar, (250 g)
- 2 large eggs, , room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅔ cup whole milk, (150 g) room temperature
- 1 cup sour cream, (227 g) room temperature
American Buttercream
- 1 ½ cup unsalted butter, (340 g)
- 7 cups powdered sugar, (790 g)
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt or kosher salt
- 2 Tablespoons whole milk
- food gel colors, as needed
Instructions
Chocolate Cake
- Preheat oven to 350℉. Line three 6-inch round cake pans with parchment paper. Lightly grease and set aside.
- Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix together coconut oil, sugar, eggs and vanilla until combined. On low speed, alternate adding the dry flour mixture and milk. Add about 1/3 of flour mixture, followed with half of the milk. Add another 1/3 of flour, following by remaining half of milk. Scrape down bowl as needed to ensure thorough mixing. Add sour cream and remaining flour. Mix until combined and there are no longer and dry streaks of flour.
- Divide batter among prepared cake pans. Level batter. Bake for 25-28 minutes until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Allow cake to cool in pan for 5 minutes before unmolding. Allow cakes to cool to room temperature on wire rack.
American Buttercream
- In the bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment (or using a hand mixer), cream together butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, and salt. Beat until smooth. Add milk to adjust consistency.
All images and text ©The Little Epicurean
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this recipe? Rate & comment below!
How do you get your flowers to not be jagged on the edges? I’ve asked several expert bakers, with no help. Whenever I practice my buttercream roses, they appear to be very rough and I’m not sure how to go about making them so the petals are softer, rounder.
Make sure your buttercream is a soft and smooth consistency.
This is absolutely beautiful! I am so glad to have found your blog. I wish I could make cakes look like this.
The most gorgeous cake there ever was!
WOW, that is absolutely stunning!! Love it!
This cake is so beautiful, and sounds delicious too!
I am hosting a bridal shower and this will be perfect! Thanks for all of the great tips!
What a beautiful cake!! Perfect for bridal and baby showers!
While I question my ability to create anything this pretty, I would most enthusiastically welcome a beautiful bouquet cake like this one! Gorgeous and I love that the inside is chocolate. Yes!
These are just the most stunning little florals ever! Love this beautiful technique and can’t wait to try it! <3
Ohh this is SO pretty! Perfect for Mother’s Day!