Lotus Flower Cake

I recently made a cake that I am pretty obsessed with! It was for my niece's college graduation party. She is very interested in anything henna/mendi inspired so I took hints from that for my main inspiration. 

I decided that using my hexagon pans would help achieve that look the best. I am using the 6in hexagon pan and the 9in hexagon pan, to fit their servings needs. I wanted to use a sophisticated, yet bold, color pallet so I went with a dark turquoise frosting, with gold and white accents. 

For my topper, I chose to make a white lotus (I am slightly lotus obsessed, to the degree that I have a lotus tattoo on my inner wrist! Lol). I searched through a few different online "paper lotus" patterns and instructions until I had a good grasp of what was involved and then kind of "winged it". 

I used a small bowl and allowed the bottom layer of petals dry, creating the softly curved shape of the lotus petals. I also pinched the end of each petal to help give the petals the "cupped" look most lotus petals have. I used smaller bowls and cups to help the inside petals hold their shape while they dried. I also created a small center of the lotus by folding petals over it until a 'bud' form started to emerge. I should also mention that I used a petal veiner on each of the petals to help give it a more realistic effect.

After carefully placing the (partially dried) petals onto the "base" petals, and adding the bud into the center to make it look like the flower was blooming, I brushed the entire flower with pearl dust to help make the petals more realistic and pop a little more. 

For the cake decor/decorations, I opted to go with a henna inspired patterns. After I piped them in royal icing and let them dry sufficiently, I brushed them all with an antique gold powder. In retrospect, I should've colored my royal icing gold and then brushed it with the gold powder to achieve a deeper/richer color. The white royal icing needed a lot of dust to make an impact and even then, it was not as bold as I wanted. But they were still pretty gorgeously antique. 

I made yellow/butter cake with strawberry filling and vanilla buttercream frosting. 

I colored the frosting a beautiful, dark turquoise color and frosted both cakes before adding on all the gold henna accents. I also made a bunch of gold dots to add color and add detail to the little henna decals. 

The top of the cake all boxed up. I added a gold pearl border to the bottom of both layers. This time I did color the fondant gold, and then brushed it with gold dust. It did help make the color so much deeper. I really loved it! 

Once I made it to her house I stacked the cake. It was much easier to stack it on site than it is to try to travel without messing it up. Haha :)

Everyone loved the cake and it was absolutely delicious! 

Like I said I am VERY obsessed with this cake! I think it is gorgeous, bold, elegant, and fun! And it has a beautiful white lotus topper, can't get any better than that! Hahaha! Hope you all enjoy it just as much as I do! 😃