Sunflower Cake

So, more sunflowers! The ones the Little Miss planted have already started sprouting greenery, which means that my makeshift greenhouses seem to work, and here is another sunny bit to brighten your day. I might have said it before, but if I haven't, here it is. We like cakes. Ever since we were little our Mother, now the Grandmother, has made us the loveliest birthday cakes, and somehow both of my sisters, and our Big Brother, ended up as the craftiest cake makers. Maybe it was by some strange sort of osmosis, or maybe they just paid more attention than I did, but it is only very recently that I myself have begun my experiments in the cake world. Still a long way to go, but I'm getting there. No hurry. Here, however, is a Sunflower Cake made by our Middle Sister for her spouse. 

The cake itself is a basic sponge she made according to the oldest sponge recipe we know, where this recipe came from I'm not sure, but most likely it is the same one the Grandmother has been using all these years for our own childhood cakes.  This means that you simply take equal amounts of eggs, flour and sugar with the addition of 1 teaspoon of baking powder. Whisk the eggs and sugar, fold in the flour and baking powder and you're done. For the filling she used strawberry jam plus some extra added strawberries, sliced banana and a mixture of whipped cream and quark, flavored with a little bit of sugar and vanilla extract. The cake was then covered with whipped cream spread with a spatula. The flower is made from pre-dyed yellow marzipan, and the center is a chocolate Noblesse cookie. Finally she split some chocolate easter eggs in half and placed them on the sides and on top of the cake. The little flower buds on the right are made of whole chocolate eggs with yellow marzipan for the flower part. Lovely.