How to: Rose Swirl Cake

I love baking. Mostly I enjoy baking cupcakes but occasionally I get asked to do a big cake or it's someone specials birthday coming up so I whip out the big guns and go all out! What started off as just a hobby and bringing cakes to friends houses with me has now become well still a hobby but I get friends (and friends of friends!) and family now asking me to bake for there special occasions too. I don't mind this at all as I find it therapeutic and although sometimes it can make my health worse it's nice to feel useful and that my health doesn't stop me from doing everything I used to be able to do.

Recently I made a chocolate sweetie cake which I really rather enjoyed for my boyfriends birthday and I did get a feel for the big cakes and thought I would try another one for my boyfriends sisters birthday last week. My mum is 60 next month and I wanted to practice a rose swirl cake for her birthday and what better way to practice then an excuse of another birthday! 

I thought I would share with you how to make a rose swirl cake as I often get asked how I do the rose swirl icing! (Check out my Instagram for a video showing you how!)

Step 1 - Ingredients and baking

I am a huge lover of Mary Berry and I always use her victoria sponge recipe for my basic "big" cakes (nb: not for my cupcakes though) although I do add an extra 25g to everything to round it up! You can use her recommended 225g if you want but 250g gives a slightly bigger cake.

250g butter or stork

250g caster sugar

4 eggs

250g self raising flour

2 teaspoons of baking powder

And that's it! 

You can then add chocolate powder/ melted chocolate or any flavouring you want to it.

If you have a mixer then put all the ingredients in together and let it do all the hard work. If not, cream the butter and sugar together first. Remember that the butter or stork needs to be room temp or it will ruin the consistency of your cake. Add the 4 eggs and beat together until smooth. Next add the flour and baking powder and mix it all in until you see no lumps and the mixture when on a spoon should fall off easily. 

Next pop it into the oven on a baking tray (if your tins are silicone like mine, of which I recommend as they literally just pop out and there is no need for parchment paper) at 180 degrees celsius for 25 minutes. After 20 minutes check the cake but DO NOT open the oven door before then as your cake will sink!! Don't be tempted even if your cake doesn't look how you expected. Sometimes the final rise in a cake is not until the last 5/10 minutes. 

Step 2 - Assembly and icing

This cake was actually a three layer cake so I made two cakes and used 3 layers (my parents ate the forth half of the cake haha) I had to use THREE butters to ice this cake, so this cake was pretty calorific. I firstly used two butters and about 500g of icing sugar, I will admit I generally wing how much icing sugar I use. I feel over the years i have learnt how much to use based on consistency of the icing, how much butter there is, what flavourings/powders are used and general taste. 

ALWAYS do a taste test of your icing before you pipe it, it's too late once you've put it on the cake! 

I have always used liquid food colourings in the past, but I hate that they can change the consistency of your icing, alter the taste sometimes and it's really hard to get a bright colour. I've recently done some research and thought i would try out the wilton icing colours. 

They are basically a concentrated gel paste and you only have to use a teeny tiny amount for a beautiful colour! What's amazing about these pastes is that the colours enhance after hour or two, say what!! I love you Wilton. Haha

Next up is the icing. I sandwiched the layers together with good quality raspberry jam and raspberry flavour pink buttercream frosting. I iced the entire cake in the raspberry flavour pink frosting so that it had a base for the roses . 

Then the more technical and daunting bit. I have piped roses plenty of times but never horizontally on the side of a cake! I did have a few practice goes and then I found it wasn't as hard as I thought, I iced the sides in the hot pink and then the top in a light pink for an ombré look. Funny enough this wasn't intentional, I ran out of buttercream after doing the sides and had to make more and then thought light pink on top would actually look quite nice. Im glad i ran out of icing now!! 

I hope you enjoyed seeing how this cake was made! Don't be afraid to have a go, it's not as complicated as it looks. If you have never piped a rose before have a look on Youtube for some tutorials, everything I do was self taught. 

You will need a Wilton 2D nozzle for the roses and they can be found in

Hobbycraft or any good cook shop as can the Wilton paste at £2.20 a pot.

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