Coolest Homemade 3 Tiered Butterfly Birthday Cake

My niece was turning one and her mom thought, butterflies! I started this Butterfly Birthday Cake by making butterflies and flowers of all sizes with gumpaste. I used cookie cutters to get the shapes. I used different colored food coloring with the gumpaste to have fun colors.

I started the butterflies and flowers two days before the party, so they were hard by the time of the party. I added floral wire to a few of the butterflies before they dried, so they could be free to move once on the cake. Their antennae (flower stamens) were also stuck in before they dried. I also started making the bow pieces using gumpaste and food coloring ahead of time. Each piece was rolled out and cut between an inch and half an inch wide & three to five inches long. I folded each bow piece and connected the ends together by pinching them. Then, I set each bow piece on it’s side to dry.

I also made “curlies” by wrapping thin pieces of fondant around wooden dowels. I made the bow pieces in a variety of colors. Each graduated tier of the cake had two layers filled with buttercream. I put each tier on a round cardboard piece of equal size and anchored it to the piece below with skewers. I covered each tier with rolled fondant that I made with marshmallows, water and powdered sugar. I colored the fondant with food coloring before rolling it out.

Once each cake was stacked and secured, I began decorating them with the gumpaste butterflies, flowers and bows. I started at the top with the bow. I anchored each piece to the cake with buttercream frosting that I colored to match the fondant (pink). After the first row of the bow felt secure, I added a second row the same way. Each piece getting “glued on” with buttercream frosting until I had a completed bow at the top. I also used a skewer to anchor the “1” candle to the top of the cake. I used green colored buttercream frosting to create the look of flower stems and grass on the bottom tier and added a border to the top tier using the same green color.

I stuck all the butterflies and flowers on with buttercream frosting. Once they were all in place, I went back and added details using different colored buttercream frosting. I wanted a little more blue to tie the cake decorations together, so I added a blue border to the middle tier.

My niece and the other birthday guests loved the cake! It was so much fun to put together and even more fun watching others enjoy it!