Lovely Lilac Flower Cake

You can almost smell the flowers with this pretty purple lilac cake. It’s just a little rustic, with purple swirls accenting the natural look of the flowers, making it perfect for weddings, birthdays and spring gatherings. While you’re making the royal icing lilacs, we recommend making extra in case of breakage--or if you just love lilacs!

Prep13 hr 40 min
Total Time4 hr 10 min
Skill LevelIntermediate

Ingredients & Tools
Instructions

Instructions

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One Day in advance, make royal icing lilacs. Prepare royal icing according to recipe. Divide into three bowls.
Combine Violet and Ivory to get light purple color shown. Combine Violet and Pink to get medium purple color shown. Combine Violet and Royal Blue to get dark purple color shown.
Using royal icing color combinations provided, tint one bowl light purple, one bowl medium purple and one bowl dark purple.
Prepare bags. Prepare four bags with a couplers and tip 59s. Fill three bags separately with light, medium and dark purple royal icing. Fill fourth bag with all three royal icing colors.
Use a flower nail and flower square to pipe four tiny rounded petals. Multiple flowers can fit on one square. Make approximately 30-40 flowers total in varied colors. Place on cake board and let dry overnight, away from sunlight.
Bake Cake. Prepare cake mix according to recipe instructions. Bake and cool one 8 in. cake.
Tint Icing. Combine Violet and Rose to get medium purple color shown. Combine Violet, Pink and Rose to get light purple color shown. Combine Violet, Royal Blue and Rose to get purple-blue color shown. Combine Moss, Juniper and Leaf Green to get green color shown.
Using color combinations provided, tint ½ cup buttercream icing each purple-blue, light purple and medium purple and ¼ cup green. Reserve remaining icing white.
Ice Cake. Using white buttercream, ice cake. Smooth the top with 13 in. angled spatula and swirl lightly around the cake to create a swirled top. Use icing smoother to smooth sides, and leave the top edge jagged and rustic.
Using 9 in. angled spatula, apply small amounts of purple buttercream around the cake. Gently smooth with a clean icing smoother. Reserve remaining purple icing.
Prepare Bags. Prepare 1 bag with coupler and green buttercream. Prepare 3 bags with couplers and tip 32 and fill separately with medium purple, light purple and purple-blue buttercream.
Decorate Cake.Attach tip 3 to green decorating bag with coupler. Pipe a long stem following the curve of the cake on top, placing it approximately 1 in. from the edge and halfway around. Add smaller stems as desired for flower buds.
Using purple icings, pipe upside down elongated shells where you want lilacs to lay. Attach royal icing flowers to each piped shell, placing them close together in different shades to create lilac clusters.
Switch tip on green bag to tip 352 and pipe leaves along the stem and near flower clusters. Switch tips on purple bags to tip 3. Pipe small bead clusters in different shades of purple and pipe small leaves on the base of each bud.