Ingredients
250g butter
softened, or Meadow Lea
250g caster sugar
3 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
290g plain flour
0.5 baking powder
185ml buttermilk
(3/4 cup)
100g butter
for icing, softened
200g icing sugar
for icing, sifted, or icing mixture
1 tbsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
for icing
2 tbsp milk
for icing
10-12 marshmallows
mix of pink and white
hundreds and thousands
small pink lollies
to make the bud of the flower
Equipment
- 1 24cm springform tin
- 1 mixer
- 1 skewer
- 1 scissors
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180°C and grease a 24cm springform tin.
- Beat butter and sugar till creamy.
- Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each egg goes in. Add vanilla.
- Sift in flour and baking powder. Beat well and add the buttermilk a little at a time till you have a thick creamy batter.
- Scrape batter into greased cake tin and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer poked in the dead centre comes out clean.
- Cool completely before icing.
- To make the icing, mix butter with icing sugar. Add vanilla and milk gradually and stop when you have a smooth but stiff icing. Spread generously over the cake.
- To make the marshmallow flowers, take a marshmallow and hold it on its side. Using scissors, cut through the middle once, then with each half cut through the middle again. You should have four petals.
- Mold the edges of each petal by pinching them slightly and dip the sticky side of the marshmallow in the hundreds and thousands.
- On a plate, arrange the marshmallow petals around the small lolly till the arrangement looks like a flower.
- Carefully place on the cake.
Notes
Tip
As this is a vanilla cake, it is really worth spending a little extra on the real-deal vanilla – either vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract. No vanilla essence please!
Tip
You can create as many or as few marshmallow flowers as you like (or your patience allows!). I just stopped when I thought my cake looked artfully decorated!
