If you’re looking for an easy way to make a super cute and fun cake, pull-apart cakes might be for you. This simple flower is great way to get in on the action – it’s an easy intro to the very wide and creative world of simple cake decorating.

A pull-apart cake is a creation made of cupcakes, each frosted individually, then rearranged to make a design. This flower is made from 8 cupcakes, which means you can make three of them from a standard cake mix. I love pull-apart cakes for parties, because there’s no worrying about cutting and serving: people can literally just walk up and take a cupcake. No forks, plates, or dirty knives necessary!

Let me give you the recipe for a doctored cake mix and decorator’s buttercream, but you can do this project with literally any cake recipe and whatever icing you’d like as long as it works on cupcakes!

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Flower Pull-Apart Cake

8 cupcakes and a little frosting make a gorgeous flower cake!

Prep Time 40

Cook Time 15

Total Time 55

Servings 24

Ingredients

Cupcakes

1 box cake mix
1 3.4 oz box of instant pudding
4 eggs
1 cup milk
⅓ cup melted butter

Buttercream Icing

½ cup butter
½ cup shortening
1 tsp vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar
1-4 Tbsp water

Instructions

Cupcakes

In a mixing bowl, mix together all ingredients until smooth.
Spoon batter into a greased or lined muffin pan. Fill cups 2/3 full.
Bake at 350° for 12-15 minutes.
Allow to cool completely before frosting.

Buttercream Icing

Cream butter, shortening, and vanilla.
Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time and mix until well combined.
Add water 1 Tbsp at a time until frosting reaches desired consistency.

Putting it all together!

Start by making your cupcakes. Y0u should be able to get 24 cupcakes out of a cake mix, so you can make 3 of these cute little flowers and even create a bouquet! I split mine into groups of three – one in the center, six around the edge, and one off to the side for the leaf.

Next mix up your icing. You’ll need three different colors. I used yellow for the center, pink for the petals, and green for the leaf.

You can frost your cupcakes any way you’d like. I just did the middle one as smooth as possible, but the petals I tried to give a more petal-y look to. I started by smoothing the frosting over the entire cupcake, then running my knife in a egg shape around the edge to define it. Then, I pulled the center towards one edge in three different strokes. It ends up looking like this:

The leaf is done by smoothing green frosting across the entire cupcake. Then, I used my knife to pull the frosting to a point on one side. The frosting hangs off the edge slightly, but if you’re using a decorator’s buttercream like the one in the recipe, it will hold its shape.