Today’s gorgeous cake design highlights the beauty of nature.  And I think today is a good day to stop and focus on the beauty found in the world around us.  To appreciate a flower blossom and each of its delicate petals.  To marvel at the grace of a fluttering butterfly.  And to simply stop and smell the flowers.  Only in this case, we’re stopping to smell the cake.  Which I can only imagine smelled divine with all of its sweetness.  Created by Yeni Monroy and her team at Dream Day Cakes®, today’s cake is delightful slice of the outdoors which will warm your heart and put a smile on your face.  Let’s enjoy this dreamy Butterfly Garden Cake!

Fred from Dream Day Cakes shares the scoop on this design:

“Yeni created this spring design for a 50th birthday celebration here in Gainesville, Florida.  The party was to be celebrated in a garden, and the cake had to fit the theme.  This three tiered cake featured 100% edible decorations, including fondant monarch butterflies, sugar flowers, a 50 topper, and a white fence.”

Fred from Dream Day Cakes tells us about Yeni’s technique:

“Yeni hand painted the grass on the bottom tier.  All of the other decorations were hand formed using fondant.  The border effect was made using a great crimping tool.   The middle tier, double sized, showcased the butterflies as well as the edible elements of the garden.

Shades of green for the background and grass helped highlight the contrasting colors of the monarch butterflies.  Other butterflies also graced the cake, as well as sugar flowers, using complimentary pastel colors of yellow and pink.”

From the hand-painted grass to the dainty blooms, everything about this garden is lush and lovely.  No wonder it has attracted so many beautiful butterflies.  Seriously, those Monarchs are simply stunning!  This cake would shine at any garden party, spring shower or Mother’s Day celebration.

A very special thank you to Yeni and Fred at Dream Day Cakes® for sharing this lovely Butterfly Garden Cake with us today!  We are enchanted, as always!

VENDORS & CREDITS
Cake : Dream Day Cakes®

Our contributor, Lauren Kapeluck of Crave. Indulge. Satisfy., is back with a FUN new recipe….

Happy Spring!  This month’s cupcake recipe can be summed up with one word: FUN!  Inspired by some multi-colored cupcake wrappers and sprinkled inside and out with my favorite rainbow jimmies, we are venturing into the world of Funfetti Cupcakes today!

Just saying the word funfetti makes me happy and it brings so many things to mind: sprinkles, bright colors, parties, celebrations and birthdays, to name a few.  As a child I can remember I always requested a funfetti cake for my birthday.  You have to admit when browsing the baking isle at the grocery store the Funfetti cake box immediately pops out at you with the slice of white cake and colored sprinkles, doesn’t it?  I’m pretty sure this cake is the reason for my sprinkle obsession today!

I have been wanting to create my own from scratch Funfetti recipe for awhile now and I’m so glad I finally did!  I think I just found my new favorite cupcake!  When creating this cupcake my goal was to keep things super simple with both the recipe and decorations.  Afterall, when I was a child I didn’t know the first thing about cake baking and decorating unless it involved a box mix and a can of frosting.  So I’ve created a basic white cake recipe and loaded it full of sprinkles for a fun burst of color!  To decorate I grabbed a spatula and slathered icing all over the top of the cupcake and rolled the edge in a bowl of sprinkles.  No piping bag, decorating tip or fancy swirling technique required for this cupcake!  I must admit, although I really like the look of a huge swirl of icing on top of cupcakes, I always end up throwing away almost all of it because its too sweet for me.  I’m really not an icing girl but more a fan of the cake.  So a light covering of icing on these cupcakes is absolutely perfect for my taste.  They may not look as fancy but there is no doubt that they taste amazing!

So grab your apron and your favorite jar of sprinkles and and whip up a batch of these Funfetti Cupcakes today!

FUNFETTI CUPCAKES
recipe by Lauren Kapeluck
(makes 28)

For the cake:

3 cups cake flour
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened, cut into cubes
5 egg whites
1 1/4 cups milk
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup rainbow jimmies

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line muffin pans with cupcake liners.
2. In bowl of stand mixer combine all dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.  Beat for 2 minutes until well combined.
3. Add butter a few cubes at a time beating on low until resembles coarse sand.
4. Add egg whites and beat on medium speed until well combined.
5. Add milk and vanilla and mix on medium speed 1-2 minutes until well combined, scraping sides of bowl as necessary.
6. Fold in rainbow jimmies.
7. Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full with batter.
8. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
9. Let cupcakes cool in pans for 5 minutes, then remove to wire racks to finish cooling.
10. Once cupcakes are completely cool frost with Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream.

For the icing:

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
4 cups confectioner’s sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 Tbsp milk
rainbow jimmies

1. In bowl of stand mixer beat butter on medium speed for 4 minutes until light and fluffy.
2. Add confectioner’s sugar, vanilla and milk and beat on medium speed for 6 minutes, scraping sides of bowl as necessary.
3. Use an offset spatula to spread on desired amount of icing.
4. Add rainbow jimmies to a bowl and dip the edge of your iced cupcake into the sprinkles and gently twist around in a circular motion until the edges are covered.

I hope this recipe becomes one of your new favorite cupcakes! Enjoy!

	Lauren Kapeluck Lauren is a monthly contributor for The Cake Blog. She is a self-taught baker and lover of all things sugar. Read more about Lauren on her bio page.

It’s time for another fabulous fashion-inspired post!  For more than a year now, we’ve been swooning over cake designs inspired by glamorous gowns.  And we all have come to know and love the ‘from dress to cake‘ concept.  But you may not realize that our very first ‘from dress to cake’ post featured today’s baker.  The talented Rachael Teufel, of Intricate Icings Cake Design in Erie, Colorado.  Ever since that very first post, we’ve enjoyed watching Rachael take dresses of all styles and turn them into stunning cake designs.  And today is another gorgeous example, complete with ruching, flowery frills and the actual dress!  Get ready to fall in LOVE…

Rachael of Intricate Icings gives us the scoop on this cake:

“We created this gown inspired wedding cake for the Martina Liana trunk show held at The Bridal Collection.  The trunk show offers brides a chance to see a larger selection of gowns by a particular gown designer and it is an opportunity for us to show off our cake designing skills using these same gowns as inspiration.  When looking at Martina Liana’s collection, I was drawn to a gown that featured overlapping layers of fabric, know as ruching, with floral accents on the hip and shoulder.”

Rachael of Intricate Icings shares her techniques:

“The bottom tier of cake was first carved into the shape of the skirt then layered with modeling chocolate ruffles.  The top tiers were covered in fondant, then textured to mimic the ruching fabric.  I used modeling chocolate petals in an overlapping fashion to recreate the look of the gowns floral accents. Towards the bottom of the cake there a few more single petals accented with sugar pearls.”

Ummm… please hold on a second while I pick my jaw up off the floor.  Talk about a showstopper!  Traditionally, the flower girl has always been the sweetest little thing in white next to the bride.  But she might have a run for her money with this cake.  It is incredible!  This dress-inspired design deserves its own role in the bridal party.  Perhaps it can be the ‘flour girl’.

A very special thank you to Rachael of Intricate Icings Cake Design for inspiring us with another From Dress to Cake transformation!

VENDORS & CREDITS
Cake:  Intricate Icings Cake Design
Photography: Allee Photography
Gown:   Martina Liana style 413
Bridal Salon:   The Bridal Collection