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Velvet Spring Cake With Butterfly Cookies Toppers

Recently we celebrated two little spring birthdays in the Maison De Miller (that’s fancy for our house). Which meant we needed a spring cake! M & B, my little twinies turned five. Yes, five. As in we’re going off to kindergarten and totally shedding the last bit of baby we have, even if you desperately tug and plead mom, it’s happening. Sigh. Birthdays are so bittersweet as moms are they not? We plan these parties and events and celebrate their turning of another year, but really…do we really want them to get a little older? No, no we sure don’t. But there’s always cake…and there’s really nothing better to make you feel a little better then a big ole slice of cake. Ah ha, now we know the origin of cake at birthdays. Sobbing moms needing to stuff their face with sweet indulgence, I kid I kid!

spring cake with butterfly cookies

So this year the twins wanted different cakes, which is really nothing new. But I’ve always been able to kinda talk their wants into one cake (or idea or party). But as they get older (back to sobbing) they’re different requests are undeniable and I want to make sure to embrace their uniqueness and they really are two people. Twins moms, this is uber hard no? So one twin wanted a yellow cake with tons of sprinkles, and the other wanted a spring cake with butterflies and colors on the inside. So we made one cake on their birthday and one cake a few days later.

Since I had made them butterfly cookies for their class, which I loved, I wanted to take advantage of already having some beautiful butterflies to start with. After making the butterfly cookies I snuck a few in the freezer knowing cake was in their future. Once I was ready to use the cookies I simply pulled the cookies out, thawed them on a paper towel, then “glued” them to sticks with white chocolate. Royal icing will also work but will take just a little longer to dry.

spring cake with butterflies

BAKE THE SPRING CAKE

Then I got started on the cake. Just as I was pulling ingredients out of my cupboard I realized LIGHTBULB, this would be the PERFECT time to try Duncan Hines Spring Velvet Cake Mix! The spring velvet cake mix came with yellow and pink cake mix which happened to be the perfect shade! And with just two gel colorings I could turn this cake into 4 color layers! So I baked up two boxes of Duncan Hines Spring Velvet Cake Mix. I left the first pink and yellow alone, then I added a little green to the yellow to make green and a little yellow to the pink to make it orange and POOF a yellow, pink, green, and orange cake to match our beautiful butterflies and make our sweet girl happy. I have to say, I was super duper impressed with the cake mix! I really didn’t alter the recipe at all (shocker!) and it seriously cake out soooo good. It bakes well, it was moist…seriously, it was good!

piece of spring cake colored layers

DECORATE THE SPRING CAKE

For the outside of the cake I knew exactly what I wanted to do…when I used the edible green grass in these pictures I knew I wanted to also use them on a cake, but in a different way then I’d seen it used before. And since I had already cut the grass into little strips for the photos, this cake came together super fast! After covering the cake in green buttercream I piped a small border of buttercream at the bottom in 4 inch increments (so the buttercream wouldn’t have time to crust). Then I just pressed the grass right into the buttercream border. I finished it off with a few little edible flowers I picked up on my last trip to Country SweetArt Kitchen, they were the perfect color! My sweet little birthday girl’s cake dreams had come true…even if it was a week after her birthday and then she decided she didn’t want to actually eat the cake. Sigh. Don’t worry there’s a happy ending…I took it to my bible study and within minutes the only thing left was a few pieces of lonely grass!

Be sure to check out more fun cake ideas in the cake section!

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Image of Toni Miller in front of a sprinkle shelf.

COOKIE DESIGNER

 I’m Toni, the baker, the blogger,  and cookie cutter maker  behind The Sprinkle Factory and I hope you find a sprinkle of inspiration here at The Factory.

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