Ingredients

• FunCakes Flavour Paste Violet 
• SmartFlex Flower 250 gr
• RD Powder Colour Yellow - Primrose
• RD Powder Colour - Black Magic
• Crisco Shortening 450 gr
• Square chocolate cake 30 x 30 cm
• Small amount of vodka
• Cornflour

Supplies

• FunCakes Decorating Bags 41 cm
• Wilton Decorator Brush
• Katy Sue Mould Pansies
• Jem Tool 4 - Dresden & Veining
• PME Flower Foam Pad
• PME Veined Board Small 
• Large pansy petal cutter set
• Sealable plastic bags to store flower and sugar paste to prevent it from drying out
• Stay-fresh mat (thick acetate sheet that stops flower paste from drying once it’s been rolled out or a plastic sheet)
• Cocktail sticks to curve petal edges, hold flower buds and remove food paste colour from a tub

Step 1: Cut the small chocolate cakes

To recreate the cakes you will need 24 round chocolate cake layers, 5cm in diameter, cut from a 30cm-square cake.

Step 2: Make the Pansies

Mix the white flower paste with some of the violet food paste colour to a lilac shade. If the paste feels stiff and sticky, add a dab of vegetable fat and knead together until the paste becomes smooth and pliable. Keep inside a sealable plastic bag to prevent it drying out.

Roll out some of the lilac paste until it is about 1mm thick and cut out some petal shapes (step 1). For each pansy you will need 2 small and 2 large teardrop-shaped petals and 1 large petal shape. You will need 1 pansy per cake; 12 in total.

Place the petal shapes for the first pansy on a foam pad (keep the remaining rolled-out paste covered with an acetate sheet to prevent the paste from drying out). To make the petals curl up slightly, ball them (see page 217) using a Celpin (step 2). Roll the veining stick across each petal with the thin end of the stick pointing towards the thinnest part of the petal each time (step 3). Use a reasonable amount of pressure to emboss the petal veins. Lightly dust a plastic board with cornflour.

Lay the petals on the board and frill the edges with a Celstick (step 4). To assemble the flower, brush the right side of one large teardrop with a small amount of edible glue (step 5) and stick the other large teardrop petal next to it, slightly overlapping.

Brush the bottom edge of both petals with a small amount of edible glue and attach the 2 smaller teardrop petals, slightly overlapping the large petals (step 6).

Pinch the narrow end of the largest petal to a tip (step 7), brush the middle of the pansy with edible glue and attach the petal, using the blunt end of a very fine artist’s brush, so that it is centred underneath the 4 teardrop petals (step 8).

Place the pansy flower into the well of a flower drying tray (step 9) and repeat for the remaining pansies. Leave to dry overnight.

Once the petals have dried, dust the outer edges of the pansies with ultramarine craft dust (step 10). Dust the pansy centres with primrose petal dust (step 11).

Mix the black petal dust with a drop of vodka to form a thick paint and, using a very fine artist’s paintbrush, paint lines from the centre outwards along each petal (step 12).

Mix the buttercream with violet food paste colour to a medium lilac shade and flavour with violet extract to taste. Attach the round piping tube to the front of a plastic piping bag and transfer the buttercream to the bag.

Sandwich together 2 chocolate cake layers with a blob of buttercream. Pipe another blob of buttercream on top of the cake and place a pansy in the centre. Repeat for the remaining cakes.

From Cakes in bloom by Peggy Porschen(Luitingh-Sijthoff, €29,99)