vintage tin

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I ADORE keeping flowers around my apartment. The fresh smelling blooms and extra pops of color really make my day. It’s the simple things, right? I’ll often arrange them in containers such as vintage jars and tins, which is what inspired me to create this cake.

The cake is topped with a lush bouquet of sugar flowers and leaves, including double tulips, peonies, daisies, and miniature poppies. Follow the instructions on pages 138 to 155 to create different flowers on wires, blossoms, and leaves. When arranging large bouquets such as this, begin by carefully inserting the larger blooms first, then filling in with medium to smaller blossoms, and then finishing by filling in any empty spaces with leaves. Because the sugar flowers are on wires, you can carefully move them around to make small adjustments.

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To make the “tin”: Cover a round cake with orange fondant, then apply two gray strips of fondant around the top and one around the bottom to create the look of an antique tin. With a fine-tip paintbrush and edible silver dust mixed with vodka, paint the gray lines silver. Paint the detail of your choice on a rolled-out piece of ivory fondant (I painted the horse freehand, but you could also use a stencil as a guide), cut it out using an oval cutter, and apply it to the cake with a mixture of equal parts water and corn syrup. Apply a thin gray fondant strip around the edge of the oval and paint it silver as you did the other strips around the tin. To give the tin an all-over antique look, dry-dust the cake using a large soft paintbrush with silver dust and a mix of cocoa powder and cornstarch for a light ivory hue.