Elevate your event with a Floral cake

Creatively designing a cake is an easy way to elevate an event. No matter how large or small the event or the cake, you’ll want to consider how it will be decorated to have the most impact on your overall event design. I admit I am a bit partial, but I always prefer fresh flowers to any other design choice when it comes to a cake.

Here are the 3 ways I use fresh flowers on cakes. Choose the one that works best for you, your aesthetic, and your timeframe.

Loose Flowers
Floral Wreaths
Floral Swags

Florals: Studio Sprig Cake: One Sweet Baking Co.

First, create a beautiful Palette

If you are designing a special cake with flowers, then it’s important to first take the extra time to showcase your cake. This does not mean you’ll need a cake pedestal, but it does mean you’ll want the surface of the cake and what you place it on to be beautiful.

Cake Boards

Start with a simple, but lovely cake board. This board goes under the cake, making it easy to move around. You can find round, square, and rectangular boards. They come in a variety of colors, ranging from plain cardboard, white, silver, and even gold.

Pretty Pedestals

I tend to really enjoy seeing cakes placed on pedestals. Especially, flesh floral cakes. I think that little bit of elevation just really sets them off and makes a very nice display.

Simplify the Icing

Don’t forget to first sculpt your cake with a really nice, but extremely simple icing design. The palette knives below are great tools that allow you to make textural patterns on the cake, and you can use different icing colors to craft something really unique, but remember, less is more.

If you are ordering your cake from a bakery, be sure to ask them to simplify the icing and keep it pretty plain so that your flower designs will really shine.

Cake Design with Loose Flowers

Loose flowers are just that, flowers grouped or placed on and around the cake in a pleasing way. The key here is not to overdo it. Often, you’ll see a cake just loaded to the brim with fancy flowers that are just falling off or piled too high. Keep things simple and just place a few loose flowers and greens in strategic places like off-center on top, or around the bottom edge. Try not to overcrowd with icing and words. I don’t think words are ever a good idea (but that’s just me). Let your floral cake shine, and remember, flowers are the focal point, simplicity is best.

The Best Loose Flowers

There are so many…so this is tough, but a good rule of thumb is never use flowers that have been sprayed with pesticides! You don’t want the chemicals anywhere near your cake, and since you have no idea where store-bought flowers come from, it’s probably best to get your flowers from a local farm or a controlled environment.

Herbs on Cakes

Herbs are nice to use to decorate cakes. Not only are they edible, but they are also the perfect size. I really like placing sprigs of rosemary and lavender on cakes, but don’t forget about lemon verbena and all varieties of mint. Besides peppermint and spearmint look for orange mint, chocolate mint, pineapple mint, and even strawberry mint. I grow many varieties on my farm, and they come in very handy.

How to Create a Floral Wreath

I love to create floral wreaths on cakes because they really add an elegant touch. And although they take a little time, they are worth it.

Floral wire base

When making a floral wreath for a cake, I use medium-gauge floral wire. I like creating the wreath with floral wire because I can easily mold it into any shape and size I need.

First, measure the diameter of your cake and loosely cut and bend the wire into that shape and size. If you have a 9” round cake, bend the wire so it’s diameter measures 7” or 8” and it’s slightly smaller than the cake. Twist the ends together and tape off the rough edge with floral tape if you have it.

What I like to do next is take a longer length of wire and crisscross it back and forth across that original circular wire, wrapping it underneath and back up on every pass. What this does is create a small base of wire where you will place your greens. you can see this in the photo below. There are many ways you can create a wire base, so use any method you find to be the simplest.

Layer the greens and herbs

After you’ve washed and dried all of the greens and herbs you want for your wreath, start layering on the wire base.

One by one, starting with the largest, use floral adhesive to adhere the pieces to the wire. Once you have a nice base of greens and herbs around the circle, you can begin gluing smaller pieces on top of the larger greens to create layers. Don’t be afraid to tuck little pieces in to hide all the wire and to add interesting movement and texture to your cake wreath. Thyme is good for this.

Flowers in the wreath

Now the fun part. The flowers you choose to glue into place should be small-medium only because they will keep your wreath in proportion. Nigella, Bachelor’s Button, small pieces of Hydrangea, or Dianthus are flowers that work well on small cake wreaths. You can use almost anything in your garden except hellebore or things that you know are toxic. *And remember to tell everyone that this cake wreath is a decoration only and NOT EDIBLE -to avoid any problems.

Finishing Touches

If you have flowers with small stems like lavender, place a small dab of floral adhesive on the stem and tuck them in around the wreath. They will make your wreath wider and create a lovely herbal spill over the edges of the cake.

When you finish your wreath, check for visible glue and wire and cover it with a green or flower until every space is filled. You should not see any structural elements when the wreath is placed on the cake. Sometimes I cover the wire underneath with a layer of leaves, but not always. It’s okay if that side lies on the cake; it’s coming off when the cake is cut.

What is a Flower Swag?

A flower swag is just something I made up. Quite simply, it’s a mini, wired sculpture, covered in a bit of floral tape and accented with little flowers & greens. It’s a much quicker way to add flower art to cupcakes or other dessert items if you don’t have time for a wreath.

Building a Floral Swag

To make a floral swag, cut a piece of floral wire and bend it into a pleasing shape. Cover the ends and areas that will be both visible and not visible with floral tape. This provides a surface for you to glue the small flowers and greens. It’s almost like building a boutonniere, only your base is a wire, not a stem. Although in the case of the black-eyed-susan above, the stem was first taped to the wire, which became the rigid spring, popping out of the cupcake.

Swags are just fun!

Floral Swags are fun to place around a cake table and you can use them like sculptures if you want them to pop out of cakes, cupcakes and even pies! They are versatile and fun, so just play around.

Thank you so much for visiting Studio Sprig. If you want more details about cake florals, read How to Create Cake Crowns and Mini Wreaths from Herbs and Flowers. I’m always here to help you with your creative journey. Please sign up and receive blog post notifications and follow Studio Sprig on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest.