For every birthday of my girls I take on a project that eventually makes me sweat. When I started making children’s cakes the themes were meadow or ladybug. Later on I said my offspring can pick their own theme. Last year the pick was “cake with healts” which was easy but this year Lily’s taste is more refined. Or maybe it’s the consequence of her being a fan of cake making shows. Once she was watching a video looking as innocent as ever and there she saw it – a giant rose cake. That was it, the decision was made. And what wouldn’t I do for my kids, right?

I like doing cakes that not only look stunning but also taste great. That's why I work with homemade modelling chocolate, butter cream and just the best ingredients.

Step 1: Ingredients for the Cake

You need to make 2 cakes diameter 20 cm and you need:

- 5 cups of sugar (a cup = about 250 ml)

- 760 g of softened butter

- 6 cups of all-purpose flour

- 10 eggs

- 4 tbsp of vanilla extract

- 1/2 tsp of salt

- 4 tsp of baking powder or soda

- 250 ml of lukewarm milk

- 260 g of white yogurt

And to make the cream you need:

- 500 g of butter

- 1000 g of confectioner’s sugar

- 4 tsp of vanilla extract

- 400 g of strawberry jam or marmalade

Step 2: Making the Cake

In a medium bowl combine flour, salt and baking powder.

In a large bowl combine the softened butter and sugar and mix well until the mixture is fluffy. Then add eggs one by one and as last the vanilla extract.

Into the butter mixture add one third of the flour mixture and mix everything well. Then add one third of milk and one third of yogurt and mix well until completely combined. Keep adding thirds until soft batter is made.
Grease the cake mold and cover the grease with some flour so the cake doesn’t stick to the mold. Preheat the oven on 170°C. Put a small tray with water at the bottom of the oven. Pour half the batter into the mold and bake for approximately 100 minutes. Then insert a wooden stick in the center of the cake, if it comes out clean the cake is done. Let the cake cool down and then let it rest in the fridge for at least 2 hours. Bake the other half of the batter the same way.

Step 3: Making the Cream

Put the butter in a bowl and beat it with a kitchen robot or a manual one until the butter becomes white and adds on some volume. Keep on beating it and little by little add the confectioner’s sugar and the vanilla extract.

Then add the strawberry jam.

Step 4: "Assembling" the Cake

Cut the cake horizontally in 3 equal parts.

Put a nice thick layer of the butter cream on the bottom part of the cake, cover it with the central part, add another cream layer and the upper cake part. Clean any extra cream from the sides.

Put both cakes in the fridge over night.

Step 5: Ingredients and Tools to Make the Rose

Ingredients:

- The 2 vanilla cakes with strawberry cream

- Modelling chocolate – here is the recipe. You will need 1200 g of the color of the rose, 200 g of the color of the leaves and 200 g of white color

- 250 g of extra strawberry cream - same recipe like for the vanilla cake

- 1 package of gelatin powder

You won’t need any special and expensive one but it’s worth investing into the following tools:

- Turning platform, you will need to turn the cake constantly when decorating it

- To work with the chocolate I really really recommend you to get a silicone mat and a silicone roll. I lost my mat a day before making the cake and rolling the chocolate on a wooden one was a hell

- sharp knife

- round cookie cutter in 3 sizes

Step 6: A Small Tip...

Let me give you a tip for working on the petals from modelling chocolate – especially the biggest ones. If they don’t maintain the shape you want, first shape them with your fingers, then place them on a plate and into the fridge for 30 seconds. After you take them out, place them immediately on the cake. On a hot day choose a cool working space.

Step 7: Shaping the Base Cake

Start with one cake as the base cake for the rose. Take the round cutter and mark a circle in the center of the cake. As you can see my cake didn’t turn out perfect, there are a lot of cracks. However, this is not a problem for this project.

Start cutting the edges of the top part of the cake to bevel it. Try to make it a bit round towards the very edge.

Step 8: Turn the Cake and Cover It

Turn the cake upside down, again mark the circle in the center and bevel the top.

Turn the cake upside up again and try to fix everything that isn’t smooth. You can also cut the very side of the cake.

Smear the whole cake with the cream, let it set for a while, turn the cake upside down and smear the remaining part. The whole cake should be smeared.

Step 9: The Pedestal

Take the second cake out of the fridge and roll out the white modelling chocolate. Place the chocolate on the cake and try to let it fall like when a big tablecloth falls on a small table - to create some folds. Rip the edges of the chocolate cover to make it look like an old linen cloth.

Place the cake with the buttercream on the pedestal. Place both cakes on the turning platform if you have one.

Step 10: The Smallest Petals

Now comes the fun part – making the petals. Roll some modelling chocolate about 4 mm thick.

With the smallest round cutter cut out a circle and cut it so that one part is slightly bigger than a half. Take this bigger part and roll it and put it in the center of the cake like shown in the third picture.

Cut out another circle and cut it in two in about two thirds. Take the bigger part and wrap it around the first petal (4th picture).

Cut out another circle and just cut off a small piece at the bottom. When you wrap this one around the previous petals, you can open the petal a little (5th picture).

Step 11: Medium Petals

Now make more petals in the same manner but using the other round cutters with bigger diameter. Keep adding petals on the cake.

When you’ve done 3 rows of petals, continue cutting the petals out with a knife. Cut out a half circle, give it some shape with your fingers – you can squeeze the edges between your fingers a little to make them thinner – and keep on adding bigger and bigger petals onto the cake.

Step 12: The Largest Petals

From 4th row start folding the petals a bit towards the outside to make it look like the rose is opening.

In the last row make the petals like the one you see in the fifth picture. The last petals should be really big and you’ll probably need to put it in the fridge for about 30 seconds to make it keep its shape better.

The last three pictures show the cake with all petals attached.

Step 13: Green Leaves

Form some leaves from the green chocolate and attach them to the rose. You can put them in the fridge to make them keep the desired shape.

Step 14: Dew Drops

The dew drops are the last step. Make the gelatin following the instructions on the package. Put drops of it on the petals, leaves and the pedestal. I used a syringe but you can use for example a wooden stick. Attention! Make the dew drops right before serving the cake, don’t put the cake with the drops in the fridge or else they become slushy.