I’m on a flower kick lately, have you noticed? First I pained flower petals, then came the lavender cookies, and most recently, the cherry blossom cookies. So today I’m keeping with the floral theme, but trading the cookies for cupcakes! With so much spring in the air, I just can’t seem to help myself. My littles certainly aren’t complaining about all the treats piled up all over my kitchen, I can promise you that! Soon it will be warm enough to get outside every day and work off all these goodies- or so I keep telling myself. Until then, I’ll just keep baking!
The first time I saw these silicone cupcake molds, I knew that I had to have them and make All The Things with them, so expect to see them pop up in postings here and there going forward. They’re available from Wilton in stores like Michael’s and Joann’s, but only seasonally. You can also find them reliably on Amazon year-round for a good price. You can use these molds just like a regular cupcake wrapper, except that when you bake with them you’ll place them on a baking sheet and modify the time needed to bake- I’ve found they need just a few minutes less than normal, depending on the recipe.
I’d suggest that you use the awesome chocolate cupcake recipe that I introduced to you in the Tagalong Cupcake post, which puffs up nicely and give you a nice rounded top to work off of when you’re making your flowers. But in the spirit of honesty among friends, I’ll tell all of you that I ran out of cocoa powder the day I wanted to make these flower pots and had to pinch-hit with a box of brownie mix. The mix actually worked pretty well and is a reasonable substitute, it just doesn’t rise as high. Your results will look so much nicer if there’s a bit of height to the middle, because it keeps the flowers from looking ‘flat’. I’ll explain below how I compensated for that before I created all the flowers.
But first, the flowers. To make these flowers, I used Russian piping tips. If you haven’t tried them before, what the heck are you doing with your life? But seriously, you really should pick up a set. They really hit the internet hard a few years ago as a decorating craze but they’ve been around for a long time. This set on Amazon is a great starter set that will get you a bunch of flower tips and some other neat designs as well. There’s really not too much skill required to use them, and they really do make flower creation an absolute breeze. The key to success is to create a buttercream frosting that is soft enough to squeeze through the piping tip while being firm enough to hold the piped shape without collapsing.
To that end, I’ll share with you my favorite all-purpose buttercream frosting recipe. It works well with piping tips of any sort, but particularly well with the Russian tips.
Traditional Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter softened
- 2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 lb confectioner's sugar (32 oz)
- 6 Tbsp whipping cream
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whip the butter until creamy. Add in the vanilla extract and then mix again until well incorporated.
- Alternate between additions of powdered sugar and whipping cream, mixing well between each addition.
- Once all the sugar is added, turn mixer to high and beat for several minutes until the frosting is fluffy and smooth. Add more whipping cream 1 tsp at a time as needed until at desired consistency
- Use frosting immediately or cover the bowl with a damp paper power until ready to bag or spread.
After you’ve made your frosting, color it with gel food coloring and put it directly into your piping bags. I recommend large bags for this project because the tips are so large that you end up cutting off several inches just to get the tips to fit. In this post, I used the colors Deep Pink, Violet, Sky Blue, Lemon Yellow, and Leaf Green. You can see the flower shapes that each of the tips that I chose created, but feel free to choose whatever seems like it would be fun for you. You’ll eventually want a leaf tip for your green frosting, but for now a large open tip will do.
Here is where I compensated for the lack of a dome with my brownie mix, and it worked so well that I’ll probably still do something similar next time I make them with cake. Grab your green frosting and cover the cake surface completely, making sure that the frosting rises in the center. Although we’ll be trying to fill most of those exposed spots with leaves at the end, a few small empty areas will be inevitable. Using green as a base will help your flowers look fuller when you’re done by preventing any bare spots from really standing out.
Once you’ve laid down your green frosting foundation, you can begin placing your flowers. The key to making a flower with a Russian tip is firm pressure, and releasing that pressure before you move the tip away from the shape. Make sure that the frosting is touching the base or when you move your tip away, you may pull your petals off along with it. Try and space the colors so that the gaps you leave between the first flower color will fit another full flower- piling this type of flower on top of one other can get messy and out of hand quickly, so try not to layer colors unless you can’t help it.
Continue creating flowers on your cupcake. There should be room for 2-3 of each color if if you made four colors like I did. The last color may get tricky when it comes to placement, because you’ll be close to running out of real estate to place it on. Just do your best- and remember that it’s better to fill a small space with a leaf than to try and force a flower into an area that’s too small. It won’t adhere well and you’ll risk ruining the flowers that you’ve already made.
Once you’re satisfied with your flowers, grab your green frosting again. Swap that open tip for a large leaf tip and pipe leaves into the open areas between flowers. To make a leaf, you’ll follow the same basic steps as the flowers- squeeze firmly to make sure you get good adhesion to the base, and release the pressure before you pull your tip away. When you’re happy with the amount of leaves, allow your frosting about an hour to harden up before serving.
That’s all there is to it! Make sure to let me know in the comments if you have any questions or thoughts. Happy decorating, and happy spring!
