It’s been all about cake and fondant around here for the last month — starting with a Gatsby Cake and ending with a pretty Flower Cake, both featuring a bit of fondant work and the BEST buttercake recipe ever!

🎉 Gatsby Cake & Flower Buttercake

Firstly, my apologies for the lack of posting over the last month! I’ve been otherwise occupied with my first ever paid baking gig — a Gatsby-themed cake for a 30th birthday party.

A few weekends of testing things out and then a big weekend of baking resulted in this two-tiered creation:

Bottom tier: red velvet
Top tier: buttercake
Covered in buttercream and then black, white, and gold fondant.
Gold decorations made with edible gold lustre + rose spirit.

I was pretty pleased with how it turned out, if I do say so myself.

🌸 The Flower Cake

After dropping off the Gatsby cake, I was left with a major cake craving. So I whipped up this flower cake to satisfy it.

This cake also uses my go-to buttercake recipe — a melt & mix method that’s light, moist, and basically foolproof.

With fondant still on my mind, I used leftover pieces to make fondant flowers. You can skip them and it’ll still be delicious — but they’re super fun to make.

🧈 Buttercake Recipe

Ingredients:

250g butter, melted
2½ cups plain flour
1¾ cups caster sugar
2 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
1½ cups milk
2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat oven to 160°C. Grease and line a 20cm round tin.
Place all ingredients in the bowl of a mixer.
Beat 2–3 minutes until well combined.
Bake for 1 hr 20 mins, or until skewer comes out clean.
Cool in tin 5 mins, then turn out to cool completely.

🧁 Vanilla Buttercream

250g butter, softened
2½ cups icing sugar, sifted
1 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Beat butter 4–5 mins until light and fluffy.
Add icing sugar and beat another 7–10 mins until pale and soft.

🌼 Fondant Flowers (Optional)

Ready-to-roll fondant
Gel food colouring
Flower cutters

Divide fondant into 3 balls and tint each one.
Roll out to 2–3mm thick, cut out flowers.
Keep unused fondant covered to prevent drying.

🎂 Assembly

Level cake top. Slice into two layers.
Place first layer on a plate, spread with buttercream.
Add second layer, cover top and sides with buttercream.
Smooth with a spatula.
Decorate with fondant flowers in any pattern you like.

And that’s it! Two totally different cakes — one glam, one sweet — both based on this one buttercake recipe I come back to again and again.

Want more creative cakes? Try Spaghetti & Meatballs Cake or Maple Bacon Cupcakes.