The magnolias on the tree have come and gone but I'm holding onto that spring feeling for just a bit longer. Because two weeks IS NOT ENOUGH Magnolia Tree!

I'm fond of recreating flowers in Swiss meringue buttercream ('SMBC') and making floral cakes. Piping petals, one-by-one, is equal parts therapeutic as it is stressful. Colour mixing is probably the most stress inducing part of the entire process. Even once they are piped, seeing them on their white parchment squares in a tray isn't much of a sight either.

But once I've baked the sponges (Hero recipe, of course) and iced the cake smooth with our signature Swiss meringue buttercream (always, obviously) and start placing the frozen-firm SMBC flowers on...that's when the magic starts happening.

I've been getting inspiration from flowers in the supermarkets but after a while there's only so much fun I can have with roses, carnations and gerberas. So I got in touch with Bunches, also a cool family business who deliver flowers to your door nationwide, to CoLLaBoRaTe on my little obsession. I spell CoLLaBoRaTe in mixed case because I am not a fan of this influencer-adjacent word. But a CoLLaB it is because Bunches sent me their Spring Roses and Freesias bouquet to create in buttercream.

They're yellow and bright and perfect for a springy cake. I can probably pipe roses with my eyes closed-ish, but it would've been a first for me to do freesias. They didn't look too complicated. This is going to be easy breezy.

The Bunches package arrived - perfectly boxed with the flower stems in little compostable pots with some form of magic gel to keep the flowers fresh during their travels. When I started separating the flowers to start arranging in my little vases I was suddenly panicked. There they were - alstomerias. Tonal yellow, green veins, speckled petals with stamens. OH MY GOSH. HOW AM I GOING TO DO THIS?? Now that I've taken on this bloomin' CoLLaB I have to figure a way out because otherwise it's proper embrassing isn't it.

Okay, it's not going to be easy breezy, but I do like a bit of a spicy challenge. I got the roses done blindfolded as expected. Next I cracked on with the alstromerias. I mixed yellows, a chestnut-reddish brown for the speckles and stamen-ends. My first attempt looked like some type of carnivorous insect-munching orchid. I can't believe I was piping them, mentally high-fiving myself, thinking, "Oh yeah, I've got this!". Because when I compared them to Bunches' real things, they were FAR FROM IT. 

The freesias were a bit better on the first go, but still not quite it. But everyday is a school day. I slept on it and went back to the bakery the next day to start from scratch. And this time, with some green mixed in, smaller petals and tweaked piping positioning, they looked so much better.

With all the flowers piped and the sponges baked I had to now decide what colour buttercream the cake should be covered in. Polls on Instagram came in with white. But I'm nothing is not a bit of a rebel so set my heart on an Oreo-speckled blue. 

Thing is, once the cake is buttercreamed, only then do the flowers go on. And once the flowers are on, they're on. There is no going back, no removing and repurposing of flowers. It's done-diggity. Finito. So all my (easter) eggs are in one blue-buttercreamed basket.

And did my punt pay off! Yellow and blue and complimentary colours on the colour wheel and so it's not WILD that it's worked but it was still a gamble not going with safe-bet ivory-white. 

I love how the flowers pop. I love even more how the mini eggs add in shape and texture.

I absolutely love how the spring cake turned out. It's so...SMILEY. 

You can order the Spring Easter Buttercream Bloom Cake for delivery directly to your door anywhere in London and Surrey (and save yourself from RSI by piping flowers yourself). 

Thank you Bunches! The flowers have outlasted the cake by weeks.

And see you next year Magnolia tree.

Love,

Reshmi xoxo