Lovely hat box cakes are always popular requests for us around this time of year. They’re vintage styling and softer colours seem synonymous with the light-hearted spring season. Earlier this week we created this wonderful peony and violet themed hat box cake for a 40th birthday! It features dainty hand-painted florals and a sweet plum, peach, juniper green, ivory and blush pink palette.
The cake itself was a classic Madagascan vanilla cake sandwiched with fresh Madagascan vanilla buttercream and home-made raspberry preserve which was then iced with fragrant marshmallow fondant tinted in a lovely blush pink colour.
We created the large voluminous bow and open peony flower a few days in advance so that each could set into fluid shapes and ruffles before being handled and placed on the finished design.
Each white stripe and plum coloured scallop edging was measured and spaced accordingly before we began hand painting small peony blooms, violets, leaves and tiny berries onto each. We planned out a pattern that alternates around the cake with one stripe featuring peonies centered and in each corner and another stripe with bundles of florals placed at the top and bottom.
To balance out the peach of the sugar peony flower we decided to create an edible gift card and envelope out of white and peach gum paste which was then placed at the top opposite side of the flower. The message was completely hand-painted and left to dry before we carefully nestled it inside our little envelope!
We hope this vintage delight was enjoyed by the lucky birthday girl! The very last thing we heard about this cake was that no one wanted to cut it at all.
