Sunflower Cake

It's a good thing this wasn't for anyone in my house because I would eat the whole thing myself. It's chocolate cake with dulce de leche filling and dulce de leche flavored buttercream icing. I have never made dulce de leche before, but it was super easy. You just boil a can of sweetened condensed milk for a couple of hours making sure the keep the can completely covered with water and you end up with the yummiest treat EVER!

I have received several requests for this so I am adding some basic how to's for this cake.

For the dulce de leche: For time's sake, I made it a few days in advance. Take a can of sweetened condensed milk. Put the can, unopened, in a pot and cover it completely with water. Bring the water to a boil then reduce heat so the water is at a simmer. Simmer the can for 2 hours, making sure that you add water every so often so the can is always completely submerged in water. After 2 hours of simmering, use tongs to remove the can and let it cool completely, either on the counter or in the fridge. If you make it in advance, make sure to refrigerate the dulce de leche until you are ready to use it.

For the sunflowers: These need to be made a few days in advance so they have time to dry before putting them on the cake. I colored some gumpaste a golden yellow. rolled it out to about 1/8" thick, then used this cutter (I used the 3" one) to cut the flowers. I then took the flowers, put them on a thin foam mat and used a ball tool to curve and shape the petals. I made the centers made from royal icing, tinted dark brown, that I piped into pointy dots. For the leaves, I just cut a basic leaf out of thinly rolled green gumpaste and shaped them with my hands.

For the cake: Make your favorite chocolate cake recipe and bake in two 8" round pans. Allow the cake to cool completely, then level both rounds.

For the dulce de leche buttercream: Use your favorite buttercream icing recipe and add 1/4 cup of dulce for every 1cup of buttercream. Mix until well blended, making sure there are no lumps.

To assemble: Fill the cake with strait dulce de leche, but first pipe a dam of icing so it doesn't ooze out the sides. Frost the cake with the dulce buttercream. Use some buttercream, tinted the same color green as the leaves, to pipe the stems. Add the sunflowers, using extra icing if needed to get them to stick to the side of the cake, and the leaves. I did mine at slightly varying heights around the cake. To finish, I piped a simple bead border around the bottom of the cake and piped the message on the top with buttercream.

Because the most time consuming part of making the cake is done in advance, it goes together really quickly the day of. I would love to see pictures if you try it!

I'm linking up: