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Cactus & Succulent Cake

Steps involved

  • Make cake layers

  • Make buttercream

  • Set buttercream aside for piping

  • Assemble and ice cake

  • Color buttercream for piping

  • Pipe roses, cacti, and succulents - freeze them

  • Add frozen plants to cake

  • Add dots and flowers to cacti

READ BEFORE CONTINUING: The following recipes are scaled to make the cake pictured above -- a 4 layer cake made with 6-inch round cake layers. If you wish to make a smaller cake, please scale down these recipes. 

recipes used

  • vanilla cake recipe

  • 1.5 - 2 batches Italian meringue buttercream

  • I made this buttercream vanilla flavored by adding 1 tablespoon of vanilla to my 1.5x batch (can add less or more to taste)

  • I always like to have extra buttercream rather than not enough, so if you're not sure how much to use, I would recommend 2

Colors used

To get these colors, I used Wilton's Color Right Food Coloring System.*


For the cake layers:

Yellow: 1 drop

Brown: 1 drop

Yellow: 1 drop


For the icing:


Pink Icing (rose):

Pink: 2 drops

Brown: 1 drop


Orange Icing (rose):

Orange: ~2 drops


Green 1 (succulent):

Blue: 1 drop

Yellow: 1 drop

Brown: 1 drop


Green 2 (succulent):

Blue: 3 drops

Yellow: 5 drops

Brown: 3 drops


Dark Green (cacti):

Blue: 11 drops

Yellow: 17 drops

Brown: 9 drops

Orange: 1 drop

Black: 2 drops


Bright Pink (cactus flower):

Pink: 1 drop

Supplies/tools

To find the tools I use for almost every cake I make and decorate (including pans, cake boards, icing smoothers, etc.), click here.


The supplies/tools below are specifically for decorating this cake, which I used in addition to the ones in the link above.*


*Some of these links may be affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I earn a small amount from some purchases, however, this does not affect my recommendations.

Decorating the cake

After the cake has been assembled and iced:


You'll need the following tips (links to products are above in the Supplies/Tools section:

  • Wilton 8B (cacti)

  • Wilton 224 (cacti flowers)

  • Ateco 101 and/or 103 (roses)

  • Ateco 352 ("pointy" succulents)

  • Ateco 80 ("curved leaf" succulents)

  • Flower nail (Ateco 907)

  • Optional: Ateco 2 (cacti dots)


  1. Cut small squares of parchment to use on flower nail.

  2. Pipe a dot of icing onto the flower nail and refer to video here to see how to pipe each plant.

  3. Remove parchment with plant attached and put on a sheet tray. Continue until you've piped all of the desired plants.

  4. Freeze plants until hard to the touch.

  5. Attach plants to cake using a small dot of buttercream to adhere them. If plants start to thaw before you can place them on the cake, put them back in the freezer to firm up before continuing.

  6. Add flowers and dots to cacti.

  7. Slice and enjoy :)


SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

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Watch the video:

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