So I am planning on making a birthday cake for my niece, her 7th birthday party is in two weeks. She has requested pink butterflies on top, purple butterflies on the sides, and "swirlies". I asked her what she meant by swirlies, and she drew a spiral design.

I have a design in mind for the butterflies, with the purple butterflies on the sides fading to pink on top, then more butterflies dangling on wires. But I am not sure how to incorporate the swirls. I was thinking maybe some scrollwork, but will it be too busy?

Here is the design idea I have for the butterflies, I am open to any suggestions on how to modify this to incorporate the swirls.

I like it like that but since she wants swirls maybe around the cake at the top (side) and bottom border.

How about using a scroll stencil and doing it in a really pale royal icing - it would mean the scrolls are incorporated but they don't take away from the effect of the butterflies. You could even do 2 colours using the stencil method

it looks a great design though

You could also make spirals out of gumpaste or fondant/gumpast mix and dry them on dowels, and then use those to decorate....

You could roll your fondant (if you are using it) on a mat with a spiral design so that it is imprinted on the whole thing, but very subtle.

Sounds a lot like a cake design I did a few years ago! I did gumpaste butterflies on wires and fondant swirls/dots on a graduated purple cake, inspired by the "The Pink Cake Box" famous cake design (I've attached that here too)....

Thanks everyone. I'm still not sure what I am going to do. I'm not sure if the kids would like the fondant, but I had thought of using a spiral or scrollwork impression mat with fondant to give the subtle look of the spirals. I think I'll ask my sister if she would prefer fondant or buttercream. If I do it in buttercream, I could do the swirls or scrolls in the same color as the cake...

Thanks for all of the suggestions!

what if the 'swirlies' flowed with the trail of butterflies? maybe even incorporate them upward with the ones on butterflies....

hmmm... I'm not able to picture what you are trying to describe...

I tried to 'sketch' it out on the puter...I ain't so good.


What if the cake was done in all white including the scrolls, then airbrush it in shades fading upward? Add the butterflies and topper and call it done.

Well, here thanks everyone. Here is the finished cake. I was short on time due to a bad storm causing our power to be our for a few days, so I ended up just piping the swirls on. Luckily I had already made the butterflies for them to dry, so all I had to do was bake the cake and ice it. What do you think?

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1760094