Rose Petal Cake

A long time ago, when I was a "baby learner" as my Mom would say, a bride brought me a picture of a cake that she said was Kevin Costner's wedding cake.  It was the first cake that I said to myself and the bride "Hmmm, so I wonder how they did that?".  So I decided to decorate a two tier cake dummy (Styrofoam) to see if I could make her happy as well as make something that I was proud of presenting.  So I set out and covered the dummy cake in fondant (which you don't have to do on the real cake because it's just too much fondant!).  I made a couple of different patterns, cut them out with an Exacto knife and then "ruffled" the edges with a ball tool (fondant was laying on soft foam).  They didn't really go above the cake line too much so I didn't have a big problem with floppy fondant.  I did add some tylose so that it would hold it's shape better. 

After I repeated that a million times, I cut more petals freehand to make it more organic (I gave up on the pattern, it was too uniform) and then painted the edges with gold luster dust paint mixture.  I tried painting them first on my practice cake, but it made more of a mess and when I had to move them around for function it would leave the dust on other pieces.  Around the top and lip of the cake I used sanding sugar to make a pretty finish.  The one change the bride made that I don't think I would have is that she especially wanted the cake to be one continuous shape without any indentions like a normal tiered cake.  The bottom of this cake was a 20" round.   Normally you would do a 20/16/12/8/6 type combination, but she wanted 20/18/16/14/12/10/8/6.  Extra petals where placed in the 1" brim on all the tiers to help it look more gradual.

To this day, it was the tallest stacked (no space between layers) cake I have made.  I used a step ladder to put it together and it had a little sway to it.  Now I know I should have put more dowels through the center to sturdy it up.  But it was straight and lasted through the reception that went on until 3am!   This was also the first cake that the event staff, at the Chattanoogan Hotel in this case, asked me how to cut it!  My answer was "I guess get the step ladder back out and start at the top!"  

I have seen this style of cake done in a lot of publications since I made this one.  Most are in chocolate that is applied to trasfer sheets and curved to fit the layers.  A lot of people call it a "rose petal" cake.  To me it will always be a "cabbage leaf" cake! 

Thanks to Beasley Photography of Ringgold Georgia for the great picture!