A love of cake runs in the family and today I have a special post from my big sister.
My husband always gives me a beautiful bouquet of flowers on valentines and I wanted to do the same for him… except he doesn’t feel the way I do about flowers. Luckily he does love cake and I had been wanting to have a go at a cupcake bouquet for a while. It seemed like the perfect idea.
This actually turned out really well and was really easy to achieve. When my husband first saw the cupcake bouquet, he thought it was real flowers for a few seconds and was very confused before he realised it was cake and his confusion turned to excitement.
Lets get started…
You will need:
- A clean plant pot – I used a black pot I got from Wilko
- A polystyrene ball a little smaller than your plant pot – I used a 15cm ball purchased from amazon
- A ramekin to add height to your polystyrene ball (this doesn’t have to be a ramekin, just use something convenient)
- Cocktail sticks
- Roughly 20 cupcakes (depending on the size of your arrangement) using your favourite recipe. I used this one.
- Buttercream in your chosen colour/s
- Piping bag
- A large star piping nozzle
- Green tissue paper
- Optional – edible glitter
Note: For the buttercream I use a 2:1 ratio of icing sugar to butter (you can switch for dairy free if needed). In this instance I used 200g of butter, 400g of icing sugar and the juice of 1 lemon. This gave the buttercream a wonderful zingy flavour and created the perfect piping consistency. I also coloured it red!
Method:
I placed the ramekin inside the plant pot and put the polystyrene ball on top. Playing around with the placement of where the cupcakes would go until I decided how close togther I wanted them. I then stuck the cocktail sticks into the polystyrene ball in the centre of each ‘cupcake spot’.
Next, I iced my cupcakes. Using a large star piping tip, pipe the buttercream in a spiral motion starting at the centre of the cupcake and ending at the outside edge. If the end of your piping isn’t as neat as you want, you can correct it gently using a small brush dipped in water. Optional: Sprinkle a little edible glitter on top of each cake at this stage.
Gently stick the cupcake onto the waiting cocktail sticks. I ended up adding extra cocktail sticks for the cupcakes around the sides. I stuck 2 sticks into the polystyrene ball at slightly different angles before pushing the cake onto both. This made the cupcakes on the sides more secure.
When all your cupcakes are in place, cut some small squares of the green tissue paper roughly 5cm x 5cm. Pushing your finger in the centre of each square, place the tissue paper in between the cupcakes to cover any gaps. Rearrange these as necessary until you are happy with the result.
Ta-Da! You’ve made a cupcake bouquet!
Here is a little video showing my process. Enjoy!
The Bakery Sister x
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