Special Occasion Cakes Recipes - Flower Birthday Cake

Ingredients

• 18cm/7in round light fruit cake

• 30ml/2 tbsp apricot jam, warmed and sieved

• 675g/4 1/2 cups marzipan

• 1.2kg/7 1/2 cups royal icing

• yellow and orange food coloring

• petal nozzle, No 1 and 2 writing nozzles, and medium star nozzle

• greaseproof paper piping bags

• 1m/1yd white ribbon, 2cm/3/4in wide

• 2m/2yd coral ribbon, 1cm/1/2in wide

• 25cm/10in coral ribbon, 5mm/1/4in wide

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Method:

1. Brush the cake with apricot jam and cover with marzipan. Place on the board.

2. Flat-ice the top and side of the cake with three layers of royal icing. Leave to dry, then ice the board. Reserve the remaining royal icing.

3. Tint one-third of the reserved royal icing yellow and 15ml/1 tbsp of it orange. Using the petal nozzle for the petals and No 1 writing nozzle for the centers, make four white narcissi with yellow centers and nine yellow narcissi with orange centers. Make nine plain white flowers with a snipped piping bag with yellow centers. When dry, secure to the top.

4. Use the star nozzle to pipe shell edgings to the cake top and base. Pipe "Happy Birthday" using the No 2 writing nozzle. Overlay in orange using the No 1 writing nozzle.

5. Secure the ribbons around the board and cake side. Finish with a coral bow.