Floral Cake

Here's a spectacular cake that's not made with flour -- but flowers. This arrangement makes a great centerpiece for a special get-together. Create one for someone's birthday, and they'll be forever grateful. Bring one to a potluck, and everyone will be in awe. Best of all, it's fat-free and cholesterol-free. Although it looks really impressive, the "recipe" is very simple. In fact, it's a piece of cake. (Okay, no more puns.)

What you’ll need:

One brick of floral foam
30 - 40 white carnations
15 - 20 colored carnations
7 - 10 roses
Cake platter

1. Carve the floral foam into a cylinder

The foundation of the cake is floral foam, available at any craft store. First, you need to carve this floral foam into a cake-shaped cylindar so you can put flowers around it. A standard brick is 4 inches wide, and that happens to be the perfect diameter of the center of the cake. Floral foam is very easy to cut with any knife. Just trace a circle and cut as straight as you can to form a cylinder. You may think that the resulting 4 inch diameter cylinder is really small, but keep in mind that when you stick flowers in it, it will extend the diameter of the cake about two inches on either side and on top. Next, dunk the foam into water. It becomes completely filled with water in seconds. Put it on your cake platter and you're ready to add the flowers.

2. Add flowers to the floral foam.

Add flowers to the floral foam in layers, starting from the bottom. Carnations are ideal for the sides of the cake because they're inexpensive, they last a long time, and best of all, they look like frosting. For your bottom row of flowers, use colored carnations. You can use all one color like red, or alternate two colors as seen in the picture to the right. Cut the carnation leaving about an inch of the stem, and just stick the stem into the foam, pushing the flower in until it can't go any further. Complete the bottom row of carnations.

For the next layer, use white carnations. Just go on top of the first layer and stick in the flowers to the foam so they line up. After one layer of white carnations is inserted, insert a second row of white carnations to complete the sides of the cake.

On the top of the cake, you can really be creative. Add some green leafs for a nice accent, and fill the top with flowers. Try to use flowers that are more flat, so the cake top is flat. Gerber daisies work well. My personal favorite is roses. When you're finished, you will have a masterpiece. You can also put the cake on a plastic plate and place the entire creation in a pink pastry box. This playful packaging travels really well.

Click here to see success stories of people who've made the floral cake