Circle of Love Cake Decorating and Baking Tutorial

This unique, beautiful and clever design may leave you wondering just how she does it – and all will be revealed in this lesson. Here Anna Maria explains how to make the structure and how to make it food safe, along with other measures such as protecting the dummy and the cake. You’ll be pleased to know the structure is very straightforward, simple and quick, but with brilliant results.

Here she gets the cake ready and cuts it to size for the cake dummy. She is a little concerned about the weight of the cake so inserts two plastic dowels to keep it secure. Now that the cake is nice and round it’s time to move on to ganaching.

In this lesson Anna Maria puts on the first layer of ganache and gets it lovely neat and round. Once this stage is complete you need to let it firm up for 15 mins or so before moving on to adding the second and final layer. Anna Maria uses a great technique for getting a lovely neat top, which you’ll love and no doubt use from here on.

In this lesson Anna shows us how to cover the board and how to get a lovely bevelled edge all the way round.

Here she shows us a brilliant technique for covering round cakes while maintaining a sharp edge. Be careful not to roll out your sugarpaste too thin, especially if you’re covering it in white sugarpaste, as you may be able to see the dark ganache coming through. If this happens you can always cover it in another layer of sugarpaste but it’d be a good idea to allow the first layer of sugarpaste to dry before doing this.

In this lesson she show us how to get the flowers ready for putting them all together. The first stage is colouring all the stamens and then inserting them into the little styrofoam balls. Then it’s just a case of cutting and veining the leaves, and adding them to the styrofoam balls. Here she shows us how to make the leaves for the tulip without using any cutters or veiners. The templates used are available in the templates section below. It’s a very quick and effective way to make leaves.

Here Anna Maria shows us how to make the cute dahlias using a dahlia cutter, along with a clever way of using a very thin cell stick or plastic knitting needle. She then goes on to show us how to add the petals to the styrofoam ball without damaging them, using soft foam which is very helpful.

In this lesson we are shown how to make the tulip leaves using the templates which are available for download from the templates section. She demonstrates how to vein them using a small cell stick.

Here she shows us how to arrange the final set of petals on the Dahlia now that it has dried. She then sets it aside to dry a little longer before moving onto dusting it.

While the flowers are drying she shows us how to prepare the plaque, which will then be painted with a lovely silhouette of a bride and groom.

In this lesson Anna Maria shows us how to turn aluminium wire into a pretty circular decoration that will sit beautifully on the cake.

In this lesson she airbrushes the leaves with a mixture of colours to create a lovely tone for the leaves. Now it’s time to let them dry and then attach them in the next lesson.

Here Anna Maria shows us how to paint the tulip petals in a lovely red tone. She then shows us how to arrange the first set of them on the flower using dental floss.

In this lesson Anna Maria brings the tulips together in her own magical way.

In this lesson she begins adding the beautiful multi coloured piped dots to the plaque. All the colours used to create the various colours of royal icing are listed in the ingredients section below. Remember to only fill the bag with a very little amount, which will give you more control – and although means re-filling more often, is definitely worth it.

Here she shows us how to trace the lovely design onto the side of the cake using the template which is available in the templates section. You will want to have a 2b pencil for this part. Once traced, the design is then piped over.

Here we see it all come together with Anna Maria finishing the piped design, adding the cake to the board and then attaching the plaques to either side of the cake.

In this lesson she finishes off the design completely by dusting the Dahlia and then arranging the flowers onto the cake using posy picks and some sugarpaste. What a stunning cake! In the following lesson she’ll be sharing some other ideas you can use when making this cake.

Here Anna Maria shares some other ideas you can try your hand at when making this cake. We’re sure you have some of your own great ideas and we’d love to see what you come up with.

Share your lovely pics with us on our Facebook page.

In this lesson, Anna Maria shares some insider information about the cost to make this cake, as well as pricing, portions and other vital information for any professional cake designer.