My "Failure" of a Birthday Cake and Easy, but Beautiful, Ideas for Decorating a Cake
I haven’t baked myself a birthday cake in years. But according to my girls, you haven’t actually turned a year older until you have eaten cake. And so, I decided to bake a gluten-free, low-histamine cake for my birthday this week. I bought ingredients, reached out to a friend to ask for a tried-and-true recipe, and started baking.
And, then, I modified the recipe. Which was…a bad idea…
And so, today, I am not sharing with you a recipe, but I am sharing with you the easiest, least expensive, way to decorate a cake that I have found. Find edible flowers in your garden and put them on the cake. Voila! Beautiful birthday cake!
For this cake, I used sprigs of lavender and clover blossoms! At the end of the post, I will share with you other ideas and resources for finding edible flowers to use.
My favorite birthday cake used to be strawberry cake because I was born at the end of strawberry season (and there was a 10-acre field of strawberries on my family’s farm when I was young). I always wanted strawberry cake and homemade strawberry ice cream for my birthday. Because strawberries are not allowed on my low-histamine diet, I had the brilliant idea of switching to a lavender cake since my lavender plants are blooming right now.
I happily picked lavender and put about a teaspoon or so of lavender buds in the buttercream frosting as I made it. (No, it’s not chocolate frosting—but buttercream made with powdered coconut sugar). Ellie excitedly took a spoonful of the delightful frosting to my husband to taste, and he nearly spit it out. Apparently, he detests the flavor of lavender in food! So, that was one failure.
The second failure is that I didn’t put enough liquid in the cake. I was completely guessing, and I guessed wrong. Baking cakes are not my strength—yeast breads are much easier for me! The cake turned out dry with a really coarse crumb texture. However, the girls and I decided that it was still good enough to eat, and we happily ate cake. I didn’t put 43 candles on it, though.
The success of the cake was using flowers to decorate. It took a few minutes. I didn’t have to clean any frosting bag tips or mix any colors into icing. Win! Win!
If you want to try this idea on your next cake, here are some lists of edible flowers that I found online. I now want to start planting more edible flowers in our garden. My sweet friend, Ginna, sent me some nasturtium seeds recently, so that will be one kind I will try!
Of course, make sure that your flowers have not been sprayed or treated with any pesticides or other chemicals! In addition to using flowers for cake decorating, you can use them in salads, bake them on top of other foods, etc.
From https://www.teleflora.com/floral-facts/list-edible-flowers:
“Edible flowers include citrus blossom, clover, daisies, dandelions, hibiscus, honeysuckle, lavender, lilac, mums, nasturtium, pansies, roses, sunflowers and violets, among others.”
You can find more lists at these websites:
I am also considering buying these books (affiliate links). Because eating food that is beautiful is such a satisfying experience!
And here is another useful and beautiful blog post about using fresh flowers and fruits to decorate cakes: https://missmustardseed.com/tips-on-decorating-cakes-with-flowers/
Another blogger and food photographer that I follow is Aimee at Twigg Studios in England: https://www.twiggstudios.com/portfolio/food/
I hope that you have been inspired to make fresh flowers part of your cooking and baking experience! I would love to see what you make! You can email me photos (right-click on this link to copy my email address or press and hold on a mobile device for my email address to appear) and state that I have permission to share with your name (or however you want to be credited), and I may share them in a future blog post if I get enough responses!
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