I LOVE making flower pot cakes! There’s something so whimsical and fun about cutting into a cake that looks like a pot full of dirt.
For this tutorial, I’m using a few different shades of buttercream to create a terra cotta effect. A bit of crumbled chocolate cake makes the dirt, and some easy drop flowers top it off!
You could make this cake for any occasion, but I think it’s perfect for springtime celebrations of a Mother’s Day dessert.
Follow the written instructions below, or watch the video tutorial!
How to make the cake look like a terra cotta pot
The trickiest bit of this whole cake design is nailing the terra cotta pot. You’ll want to make sure that you get the color right and also that you spend some time carving that lip at the top of the pot.
How much frosting do you need?
The total amount of buttercream you need will depend on the size of your cake! For my 6-inch two-layer cake I used about 4 cups of chocolate buttercream to fill and frost the main part of the cake. Then I used maybe another cup or so of frosting for the leaves and flowers.
For the cake filling and the terra cotta frosting, I used my standard recipe for Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream, which makes about 5 cups.
I had some extra vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream for the leaves and flowers, but if you don’t have any extra frosting on hand, you can just make a larger recipe. Simply remove some of the plain buttercream before adding your chocolate, and you’ll have that reserve portion for the decorations. Or don’t use chocolate at all!
Mixing the terra cotta colored buttercream
I’ve made this terra cotta color with both vanilla buttercream and chocolate buttercream before, and it’s definitely way easier to achieve when starting with a chocolate base.
To the chocolate base I just added a few drops each of red and yellow gel food coloring. You could definitely add orange, but I don’t usually keep orange around since it’s so easy to mix.
For a vanilla base, you’ll want to start out with an orange color, then tone it down with a little bit of darker brown.
The other key to making the terra cotta effect is to use two different shades. Once I got my main color mixed, I simply added a small amount of the terra cotta colored buttercream to some plain white vanilla buttercream. You don’t need a lot of this lighter shade, just enough to spread a bit around the outside of the cake.
Frosting the cake
After your cake is stacked and crumb-coated, frost the cake with the darker buttercream. Keep the frosting fairly even but don’t worry about making it perfectly smooth.
Next, use a small spatula to randomly spread dabs of the lighter colored frosting all around the cake. You want just enough of the lighter color to create some variation, but you don’t want to cover the whole cake with it.
Finally, use a straight-sided cake scraper to blend and smooth everything out.
Creating the lip of your “pot”
Now it’s time to make the lip of the pot! Take whatever you have left of the terra cotta colored buttercreams and put it in a piping bad, no tip needed. Pipe a nice thick line around the top edge of the cake.
Use a spatula to very gently scrape along this line and flatten it out. Then scrape along the top of the cake, from the outside edge to the center, to remove any excess buttercream from the top edge.
At this point, move your cake to the fridge to chill for 10-20 minutes.
Once the cake is chilled and the frosting is firmed up a bit, you can go back in and clean up the lip of the pot and any other spots that need a little work.
I find it easiest to use a hot spatula or knife to scrape away any uneven edges. You can heat up your spatula by dipping it in some hot water, then drying it off with a clean towel.
I also went back and smoothed the bottom half of the cake again. If your cake is short, you probably won’t be able to use a regular cake scraper without bumping into the lip. I ended up using a small piece of acetate that I cut to fit the bottom of my “pot.”
If you don’t have acetate you could try finding a clean piece of plastic or cardboard to cut to the right size.
Finishing your cake with “dirt” and easy buttercream flowers
Making edible “dirt”
For this particular cake, I simply crumbled up some leftover chocolate cake to use as dirt. In the past I’ve used crushed up cookies and even crushed up chocolate graham crackers, so just use what you have!
Spread the dirt around the top of your cake, leaving a ring of empty space around the edge.
Piping leaves
I used a tip 67 to pipe these leaves, but a 352 or something similar would be fine.
You’ll need to pipe confidently, giving the piping bag a rather firm squeeze before you pull away. This will give each leaf a nice thick base and some weight to prevent the whole thing from lifting away. This is especially important if you use cookie crumbs rather than cake, as the buttercream won’t stick to the cookie as well.
Pipe a few rings of leaves at the base of where you want each flower to go. You can always come back later and add a few more leaves.
Piping Flowers
After spending all that time working on the terra cot pot, I wanted the flowers for this cake to be easy! I used a tip 224, which is a small drop flower tip.
Pipe a small mound of buttercream to act as a base for your flowers. Then pipe with small, short squeezes to cover the mound in tiny flowers.
You can read more about piping drop flowers in my post How to Pipe Basic Buttercream Drop Flowers.
More flower pot cake ideas
I used drop flowers for this flower pot cake because I wanted to keep it easy, but it would look great with all kinds of buttercream flowers!
You could even try making a succulent planter if flowers aren’t your thing! Check out this video to learn how to pipe a whole bunch of different buttercream succulents.
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