floral wreath cake for mother's day

After making this Hello Kitty wreath cake for my birthday back in April, I became obsessed with wreath cakes. I was seeing them all over Instagram, with beautifully piped buttercream roses and peonies - they were all so pretty! And then, the talented I Am Baker came out with yet another wreath cake tutorial, this time using easy rosettes! I had to make one for Mother's Day!

I had also recently made a bananas and cream birthday cake, and it was such a delicious combo that I wanted to do it again for Mother's Day ... but this time with coffee chiffon cake! Yes, I know. Coffee and banana? What? But years ago I had made this cake using a banana cake recipe from David Lebovitz's book, "Ready for Dessert", and I was intrigued that the cake batter called for bananas and espresso. While in the end I couldn't really taste the espresso in the banana cake, it must have been a good flavor pairing if David Lebovitz put it together in a recipe, right?

So I baked up three 6-inch coffee chiffon cakes, and filled them with freshly whipped cream and sliced bananas. And then covered the entire thing with more whipped cream, smoothing it with an offset spatula.

For the rosettes, I tinted my whipped cream with soft pink food coloring and used a large star tip to pipe rosettes along the perimeter of my cake.

Then I added a bit more coloring to make a darker pink, and used a smaller star tip to pipe mini rosettes here and there on top of the large rosettes.

And finally I used a leaf tip to pipe little green leaves, for a pop of color.

I loved the finished look! And it was so easy! 

And if you're wondering about the coffee and banana combo, it was delicious, to my surprise!

Happy Mother's Day!