One of my favorite flourishes to use in cake decorating is sanding sugar. It’s more commonly used to sprinkle on cookies before they bake, but trust me when I say it’s an excellent addition to frosted cakes. Besides the extra sweetness, there’s something wonderful about that extra bit of texture and crunch between your teeth when you take a bite. I use it here to create colorful patchwork, and even though creating quilting on cake may sound daunting, I promise it’s a snap!
I used multicolor sanding sugar for some of the patchwork in this cake, but I think pastel pink and baby blue sanding sugars could be used to make an adorable baby blanket cake for showers.
To get started you’ll need to gather the cake mix ingredients and mix them all together.
Bake the batter in a 9x13-inch pan. When it has cooled, turn it out (upside-down) onto a large cake or cutting board, then frost it liberally with one container of Betty Crocker® Whipped fluffy white frosting. Refrigerate the cake and frost with a second layer to even the cake’s surface.
Score the top of the cake with the dull edge of a large knife. Make three lines vertically about every three inches.
Make two lines horizontally at three-inch intervals.
To make the edges of each square neat, I used a small piece of unused craft paper to hold at each scored line.
Pour a spoonful of sanding sugar against the paper and allow it to fall in a straight line onto the cake. Repeat with the other three edges of the square.
You can also omit the use of paper and pour a spoonful of sugar in the center of each square and gently push it to the edges of the scored lines with a spoon edge.
For the flowers, cut marshmallows in half using a pair of clean kitchen scissors. Dip the green marshmallows in to the green sanding sugar and the yellow marshmallows in the yellow sanding sugar. The sugar will coat the cut edges of the marshmallows.
Arrange five marshmallow “petals” into a flower shape (sugared-side-up) on top of each icing dot and press to adhere. Press a yellow sugar pearl into the center of each flower. Store loosely covered.