I am making a butterfly cake for my friends daughters birthday this weekend.
I decided to carve it from square rather than pay £20 for a butterfly tin.
Does anyone have any hints or tips for me? This is the first time I have carved a cake. I have made a template so I thought I'd cut round that for the outline then carve ridges etc, then fondant it.
I was then going to cover the board in royal icing 'grass' and add flowers, bees and lady bugs.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Sounds like a great plan of action! Great thinking with the template, I use tempkates for everything lol. Can't wait to see pics, best of luck 
How about something like this? made out of a round (so no wasted cake!):
http://cakecentral.com/gallery/2027827
and another great one, using same method: http://cakecentral.com/gallery/2048302
If you haven't baked the cake yet, definitely use a round pan! Or two hearts, if you have heart-shaped pans, make a great butterfly too.
This is one I did for my daughter's birthday, using both types of pans -- at the time I didn't know anything yet about smoothing frosting but I think it came out cute, and you can see how the wing shapes are put together. The body piece in between the half-round wings was the scrap left from fitting the two heart-shaped wings together! (The other 'body' is just piped frosting.)
Freeze your cake before you carve; it's much easier to handle and cuts without ripping that way. Go ahead and make your paper template and put that right on top of the cake as a guide for your knife. I usually "score" the top of the cake around my template, and then remove the template and cut through along the guidelines I've made in the top. I find it easier to see what I'm doing that way.
Holly
Agree, definitely go with a round rather than a square = less cake wastage. Cut your round in half and then back to back the round bits. You can then carve an indent into each wing to make it look like two wings.
She'll love it 
Thanks for all your suggestions!!
I had a bit of a disaster, was going to pipe the grass but it kept flopping!! So it was spread instead. Anyhow nearly there just off to the real paying job then I'll finish it off....
(shame i got so caught up I forgot breakfast!!)
Making butterfly cake on birthday party is now made easy and simple with this simple recipe that just bake 3 heart-shaped cakes in 9″ heart-shaped cake pan. Then use two of the 9'' heart - shaped hearts pans for the top wings.Now simply cut and trim the remaining heart cake to make it use as the lower wings.Then place 4 cupcakes in the center for the body.
Have fun frosting and got your ready to serve butterfly cake.
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