Sweetie Darling: I Heart Martha

When I was younger all I knew about Martha Stewart was that she could make a dining table out of two doilies and a roll of aluminium (or should I say aluminum?) foil and that she went to jail for insider trading. Boy was I missing out! Martha Stewart steers an empire that creates many amazing things, baked goods being high on the agenda. Check out her site here. I hope you like it as much as I do.

One of the creations that the Martha empire is responsible for is the much admired, much blogged about, much Pinterested (great invented word!), much copied Ruffle Tower Cake.

Photo from marthastewart.com

Have you ever seen a prettier cake in your life? I have made a ruffle cake before with red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting but it just didn't have the same effect as this beautiful cake. Off white frosting just didn't cut it. I had to make this cake in pink. It had been on my list of things to do for a while now. I just needed an excuse! I found two.

Excuse number one involved the sugar flower I made earlier in the week.

This flower needed a home. I couldn't think of a better place for such a delicate, feminine creation than a Martha Stewart Ruffle Tower Cake!

Excuse number two involved my beautiful husband's cousins who were coming to Melbourne from New Zealand. They needed cake. Everyone needs cake. They needed a Martha Stewart Ruffle Tower Cake!

The next thing that needed to be decided was what type of cake would go inside the pink ruffly goodness. I think when the frosting is as dramatic and show-stopping as these ruffles are, a plain cake is what is in order. I love plain cake. The Martha recipe suggests a Tender Lemon Cake which sounds lovely but the recipe was enough to make three six inch cakes. I needed a bigger cake than that. Sure, I could have adjusted the recipe to compensate but I couldn't be bothered! A wonderful blogger who often makes many-layered cakes came to my rescue. Sweetapolita had a Classic Vanilla Butter Cake ready to be made with three eight inch layers. Sold! If you are interested in making this cake you can get the recipe here. It was divine as all of her cakes are.

So we had the flower. We had the cake. We needed the frosting. We needed Swiss meringue buttercream.

Please don't be scared. It really isn't that hard. I think it deserves another blog post in the future so I won't describe how it is made here. Suffice is to say that Swiss meringue buttercream is amazing. It is a subtly-sweet, velvety, silky, glossy buttercream that is an absolute dream to pipe. The part I love the most about it is that it must be kept at room temperature so there is no need to worry about it spoiling. It is my new favourite frosting.

So we have the cake, the flower and the frosting. Put them all together...