Daisy Daisy
From Quick & Easy Wedding Cakes, by Karen Goble

This modern, bright cake is so simple to make, yet so eye-catching. You can change the colours of the flowers to match any wedding scheme.

[Ed. note: You cannot really make this cake without the recipes for the cake, buttercream, modelling paste, and royal icing in their correct quantities, all of which are found in the book. There are also extra instructions for covering a cake in sugarpaste and supporting a milti-tier cake with dowels (and instructional photos). But the following instructions for assembling and decorating this cake will give you a good idea of what is involved in making the wedding cakes found in this book.]

Materials:

15cm (6in), 20cm (8in), 25cm (10in) and 30cm (12in) round madeira cakes
6 quantities of buttercream
Jam (jelly) optional
4.375kg (91b 8oz) ivory sugarpaste (rolled fondant)
Cornflour (cornstarch)
250g (9oz) modelling paste
Paste colours: pink, white, yellow, ice blue, violet, tangerine
Clear alcohol
Royal icing

Equipment:

40cm (15-3/4in) round cake drum board
15cm (6in), 20cm (8in) and 25cm (10in) thin round cake boards
Sharp knife
Palette knife
Rolling pin
Cake smoother
18 dowels
Piping (decorating) bag fitted with a no. 1.5 piping tube (nozzle)
Large daisy mould
Palette
Paintbrushes
Double-sided tape
Thin ribbon in colours to match daisies for cakes and drum board

Instructions:

1. Put the largest cake on the drum board and the other three cakes on the appropriate thin boards. Cut the cakes in half and fill with buttercream and jam if liked. Coat all four cakes with a layer of buttercream. Roll out the sugarpaste and cover the cakes and the drum board.

2. The cakes need to be supported with dowels. Stack the cakes. Add a little cooled, boiled water to a small amount of sugarpaste and mix until a piping consistency is achieved. Put in the piping bag and fill the joins between the tiers. Smooth the joins and leave to dry.

3. Dust the daisy mould with cornflour and push a small amount of modelling paste into the mould. Trim any excess paste. Lift the daisy out of the mould; trim if necessary. Leave to dry Make approximately 39 daisies.

4. Paint the daisies using the paste colours, thinned with a little clear alcohol. You will need seven in each colour (this allows for mishaps). Use yellow for all of the flower centres except for the yellow daisies; for these use tangerine. Mix white with the pink, violet and blue paste colours as they are very strong. Paint the back of the daisies too.

5. Set aside the painted daisies to dry.

6. Once dry set aside three different coloured daisies for the top decoration. Position the rest of the daisies on the cake, spacing them evenly around the side of each tier and alternating the colours. Secure in place with royal icing.

7. Stand three daises on top of the cake and secure with royal icing.

8. Stick double-sided tape around the drum board and trim with different coloured ribbons. Place a ribbon around each tier and secure the ends with double-sided tape.

Note: The brightly coloured daisies give this cake a modern, funky feel. However if you wanted to, you could take the basic idea of this design but use different flowers and colours to create a cake with a very different feel.

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