Hibiscus Birthday Cake

This cake is my fifth recipe I've tried from the Layered cookbook and it's also the fifth recipe I would make again!

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The cake is orange poppy seed cake with passionfruit Italian meringue buttercream filling iced in vanilla bean Italian meringue buttercream. The cake is super light and delicious and I love anything with passionfruit!

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The cake was covered in a pale pink vanilla fondant as was the cake drum. I wrapped the cake drum in gold fondant and dusted the bottom of the cake with a gold lustre dust. But the focal point of the cake is undoubtedly the gumpaste hibiscus, buds and leaves!

The hibiscus and buds are dusted with sweet butter petal dust and then highlighted close to the center with carnation petal dust and a smidge of stargazer. I mixed carnation petal dust with a little vodka to add some fine definition lines to each petal. The pistil is dusted with stargazer. I'm very pleased with how these flowers turned out!!