Cupcake Bouquet

Ok so this is my Cupcake Bouquet.

 

I know, pretty right? Also majorly stressful! Here’s a bit about my bouquet.

(EASY–> OK –> HARD)
Baking : EASY
Presentation : actual cake : OK (if you are used to piping)
Presentation : packaging/frilly bits : SO HARD!
Overall stress levels : 5/5
Satisfaction : 5/5 🙂

Time from start to finish : 1.5/2 hours
(Making cake mix 10 mins, baking cakes 20 mins, cooling 1 hour, making buttercream 15 mins, piping 30 mins, actual bouquet making 30 mins)

I first made this for my mum for Mother’s Day in 2018. It looks nice, it looks professional. People often think that it is real flowers, until they look closer. I love making this… well I love the idea of it and then the finished product…. The actual process gets me stressed every time, because although I’m not a perfectionist, well, actually, I guess in baking I am a perfectionist. And so much of this is presentation – I am NOT an artistic person, so this is a challenge every time. The baking of the cupcakes is actually really easy.

You will need a BOAT load of stuff for this bake. Here’s what I used when I made it last:

Ingredients:
VANILLA CUPCAKES
225g unsalted butter, room temp
225g caster sugar
225g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
4 eggs
1tsp vanilla extract

BUTTERCREAM RECIPE
450g icing sugar
230g room temperature, unsalted butter
1tsp vanilla extract
2tbsp milk

Marshmallows – you will need the small white marshmallows that are usually in the baking aisle.
Food colouring – for my bouquet I used a pink gel to make the lighter and darker shades.
Silver balls – these are really good to just have at home, I use them all the time and especially at Christmas.
Edible glitter – I am currently using the pink one from tesco, but it is available in loads of places much cheaper.

Equipment:
Electric mixer or good old wooden spoon and mixing bowl
12 Cupcake baking tin
A couple of little bowls to mix your buttercream in
Piping nozzles and bags. The nozzle you will need is the Wilton 1M

Packaging:
Paper cups x 12
Tissue paper – two sheets of pink and two sheets of white about 60cm by 40cm, 24 x smaller sheets about 15cm squares in pink and purple.
Stapler
Cellotape
Florist wrap
Bow – pink

How to:

Make your cupcakes
• Preheat the oven to 180’C (350’F). Put cupcake cases in a cupcake tray. I usually get 24 in and have a bit left over.
• Mix all your ingredients together in an electric mixer, or by hand. Just make sure there are no lumps, and it is smooth and airy when you’re done mixing.
• Spoon into cupcake cases and put into the oven for around 18-20 mins, or until they are kind of springy and a bit browned.
• Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. They will need to be absolutely cold to get the icing right.

Make your buttercream
• Mix the ingredients together until smooth with no lumps.
• Add a couple of drops of your food colouring. Obviously the more you put in the darker the shade. I start by adding a little, (you can put in more, but you can’t take any out!) You will need a couple of shades by the end anyway.

Pipe your cupcakes
Here is the tricky part. I get more wrong than right, but as I have 24 cupcakes and only need 12, that’s fine!! 🙂
• Take your piping bag and cut the end off. Enough to fit the piping nozzle through it without falling out.
• Put your buttercream into the piping bag and push it down to the end, getting all the air out.
• Start piping! Do swirls to make the ‘rose’ and stars to make the ‘hydrangeas’.

• Roses – squeeze the bag and pipe in a swirl from the middle outwards until the cake is covered. It will look like a rose.. well, that’s this idea!
• Hydrangeas – Hold the nozzle flat against the cake and squeeze, slowly lifting a little and then stop squeezing and lift the bag away. You should have a little star. Do this over the entire cupcake.  Just as an aside, these work well with blue and white.

TIP: MAKE SURE THE NOZZLE IS TOUCHING THE CAKE AND WHEN YOU FINISH YOUR STAR OR SWIRL, STOP AND PUSH INTO THE CAKE A BIT SO THAT THE BUTTERCREAM STICKS, BEFORE PULLING AWAY.

• To make the two tone ‘roses’ you need to put a couple of drops of gel colouring on the inside of the piping bag before you put the buttercream in. Put the colouring in then squish the bag together so it goes all over the inside of the bag. Try and get this as close to the nozzle as possible. Then put your buttercream in without getting all the colouring off the sides! I KNOW!! It is tricky and frustrating but when it works it’s great.
• Pipe your ‘roses’ as usual.

TIP: PIPE OUT THE FIRST BIT FROM YOUR PIPING BAG INTO A BOWL TO MAKE SURE THE BUTTERCREAM IS COMING TOGETHER AS YOU WANT IT.

• The marshmallow flowers are the easiest to make. And if all goes wrong, just do 12 of those!  Hold the mini marshmallows between your thumb and finger and cut diagonally, so you make a kind of triangle.
• Put a bit of butter cream on the top of your cake and then start arranging the marshmallows in concentric circles until you get to the middle. Tips pointing upward. You’ll hopefully have a bit of a gap in the middle to put a little silver ball.

Make your bouquet
• Take one sheet of the florist wrap and lay it flat on the table, then lay the other diagonally across.
• Lay two sheets of the pink tissue paper in the middle of the cellophane, again diagonally so they look like a cross.
• Finally on top of that put the two white sheets as you’ve done the pink.
• Take your cups and staple them in the following pattern:
3-4-3-2
• Place this in the middle of your tissue and cellophane pile.
• Use the smaller sheets of tissue paper to put in the paper cups: 2 per cup. These will hold the cupcakes up, and look pretty! Place your cupcakes in gently. I would wait until the frosting has slightly hardened as it will be less likely that you mess up the icing by accident when assembling.
• Wrapping it up to look like a bouquet is the bit I find hardest. I usually need help from someone. Gather the edges and make a kind of S shape, making sure that the tissue paper stays inside the cellophane. Use little bits of cello tape to hold them in place as you do the other edges. You can adjust these when you’re done.
• Stick a bow on the front. I wouldn’t tie it tight as it is really for decoration rather than tying something up.
• Have a sip of that Red that you’ve been looking at the whole time, and step back.

Done. 🙂 Easy right??

Are you going to try this out? Let me know how it goes. Send me some pics. Got any ideas on how to improve the bake? I would love to know!
Happy baking, Becca x