Cupcake Cake

Here is a quick and easy cake I made for a cake walk. Sometimes I find making cakes for cake walks a bit difficult, because as I have mentioned before, I need strict criteria and direction to make a nice cake design. With cake walks, usually there is no theme for the cakes, the cakes are just simply cakes. I mean, you can choose to theme your cake if you wish, or just do a simple cake design, or just ice a cake and throw some sprinkles on or whatever. If the cake walk is being held close to a holiday or celebration, you can decorate the cake according to the theme, like a Christmas cake, Easter cake, spring cake, winter cake, Mother's day cake, etc. If the cake walk is being held for a particular fundraiser, say a local animal shelter, the cake could be decorated with a pet or animal theme. But at this tricky time of year, which isn't particularly close to any holidays or changes of season, cake themes are difficult to come up with. I suppose I could have gotten away with a St. Patrick's themed cake or a spring themed cake, or even an Easter themed cake, but it just didn't seem to be quite the right time for any of those cakes. I was settling on doing just a cake design, like one with a bottom border, top border, and some flowers or other piped decorations in the middle using a simple two or three color scheme. But then, while searching for ideas, and I found many endless good ideas, I found a few different versions of this idea; a cupcake cake. It is cute, simple, and quick and easy, which is certainly what I needed. It seems just a little ironic to put a cupcake on a cake, but hey, who doesn't like cupcakes?
For this cake, I frosted it with my perfect chocolate frosting, then choose a pink and green buttercream. I put an alternating rope border on the bottom and a spin on an alternating shell border around the top. Then I used my basketweave tip flipped upside down to pipe straight lines for the cupcake base in red, used my open round tip to pipe green swirls on top, then added a red cherry on top. It didn't take very long at all, but is simple and pretty for a cake walk.