I made this little cake from a design comprised of a personal sketch as well as some other cakes I’d seen with sunflowers on them.  Rather than make a big 9-inch layered cake, I decided to cut the recipe in half and just make it in a 6-inch pan instead.  I really liked this since it made a cute, small, delicate cake rather than a big, extravagant cake.  I cut the two 6-inch layers into two each, ultimately making a four layered cake and put a little bit of the buttercream with some apricot jam between the layers.

I still need to practice my sunflower-making skills for sure.  I made these out of a coconut-malibu rum buttercream frosting and used a leaf tip to make the petals while I used just a small tip to make the center out of the same frosting dyed with brown dye and a touch of cocoa powder.  Right after making each flower, I froze them before transferring them to the cake.  I must say I really enjoyed drawing the curly brown stems on the cake the best.  After finishing it I refrigerated it to harden the buttercream frosting before writing on the top of it.

Next time I make a cake like this I will be sure to learn a better way to make the flowers and try to make the brown frosting smoother since it seemed to come out with a lot of air bubbles during piping.  The icing tasted really good but was a bit sweet.  Also, I would like the make the icing much smoother than it was this time.  This will require using a different method rather than just a simple frosting knife.