Pull Apart Succulent Cake

Nothing says happy anniversary like a pull apart, heart shaped, succulent cake, right?! Right. Or at least for my brother and sister in-law.

This year, I got a bee in my bonnet that I wanted it to be a heart shaped pull apart cake decorated to look like it was covered in succulents. It seemed apt since my husband’s brother and wife have the most incredible succulent garden and arrangements I have ever seen.

And in order to make this happen (in case you get a similar bee in your bonnet) you will need:

Cupcake liners
Heart shaped spring form pan
Piping bags
Piping Tips – Wilton large round (12), small star (21), large star (2D), leaf (352) and small (3) tips
Gel colors

And cupcake batter of your choice…

Step 1:
Line a spring form heart shaped pan with cupcake liners, carefully adjusting to fit. The idea is to get imperfect shapes that all fit together as the cupcakes bake like puzzle pieces.

Step 2:
Carefully spoon your cupcake batter of choice into each liner until about 2/3 full and bake until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted.

Step 3:
Allow to cool. In this case I used a gluten-free recipe, so there was not as much rise as with a traditional cupcake.

Step 4:
Make up a batch of butter cream frosting. I find using vegetable shortening is preferable to actual butter for easier piping and flowers and a better crust. So when decorating I generally stick to the following buttercream made from vegetable shortening, in a medium consistency:

Buttercream:

1 cup vegetable shortening

1 teaspoon vanilla

10 teaspoons room temp water

4 Cups powdered sugar

pinch of salt

Beat together and add more water at a 1/2 teaspoon at a time until desired consistency is achieved.

Step 5:
Tint your frosting into desired hues. I used combination of black, copper, green, yellow and purple wilton gel in differing amounts and playing around to get the colours I was going for. I found the black made all the difference in getting more authentic hues.

Step 6:
I wanted each cupcake to look like it is it’s own succulent, so I used several different tips and tints:

The large round tip (Wilton 12):

Working with the grey-green butter cream, I used a wilton round tip to make what turned out to my favourite of the succulents. I started in the centre and worked out and around in a circular pattern, working out and adding height with layers. In order to achieve this I piped to the height I wanted and then pulled up to get a point (the opposite to getting a dot and far more forgiving).

The leaf tip (Wilton 352):

With the green butter cream use the leaf tip for both the trailing succulents as well as the stacking ones. Really with succulents you can’t go wrong, they are very organic, differing shapes and almost any tip could be used as long as it is not too large. The fun thing is the possibilities are endless!

Small star (rosette) tip (Wilton 21):

Using green butter cream allow the frosting to stack up for height (think mini cactus) with tapering tips, in varying heights, but right up next to each other. Generally the mother is the is the tallest in the centre grouping of a succulent and all the babies growing around.

Working with the lighter green buttercream, pipe out seashell rows.

Large star (rose) tip (Wilton 2D):

Put two colours of butter cream in a piping bag to get a two tone look and do a basic rose or stars.

Tiny dot tip (Wilton 3):

With white butter cream I added details of little white dots to make some of the succulents look more real.

Step 8:
Step back and admire your handy work. Store under a cake cover at room temperature.

I can not wait to do another succulent cake in the future. Surprisingly I found the succulents so much easier and more forgiving than traditional butter cream flowers to pipe, as I found all the proper piping techniques went out the window and all those ‘faux pas’ that you are to avoid made for better succulents! Spend your time mixing your colours as that is what makes all the difference in my opinion!!