Mother’s Day Bouquet…of Cupcakes!

Mother’s Day is next Sunday. What a better way to surprise mum than with a lovely bouquet of flowers…that are edible! Visiting mum for morning or afternoon tea with a gorgeous bouquet of cupcakes to share would, I’m sure, surprise most mothers. Even more surprising is to tell her you made them yourself.

There are so many different ways to construct cupcake bouquets and floral arrangements with cake, so this week’s blog will look at different construction techniques for cupcake bouquet’s (we’ll even have a look at how to use a giant cupcake as floral arrangement)…all so you can spoil mum with a sweet afternoon next Sunday. Better than burnt toast crumbs in the bed! LOL

Once you have baked your cupcakes, you need to decide how best to decorate them so they look like individual flowers. The fastest way is to use an open start tip and pipe contemporary roses, but if you know your stuff and are proficient with an icing bag the sunflowers, hydrangea’s, sweet peas etc. all make for gorgeous bouquets too. If; however, you prefer to work with fondant or sugar paste…or even marshmallow pieces coated in coloured sugar, then any floral cupcake or combination of, will work the same.  The first tip though is that depending on the flower, I construct with ‘naked’ cupcakes and ice them once they are attached. There is less chance of me spoiling the icing. Fondant or sugar paste ones wouldn’t really matter – I’d decorate them first. It’s all personal preference.

There are three main ways to construct the bouquet:

1. Onto a polystyrene ball with skewers/toothpicks
2. On skewers with stoppers
3. Using paper or plastic cups

Each method has its pros and cons; it all depends on what works best for you, and the size or type of container that you are using to present them in.  There’s nothing to say that you can’t combine techniques either.

This construction technique uses disposable cups that you staple together and insert into your bucket, pot or vase. You could use paper single-serve ice cream cups, plastic dinking cups…whatever you can lay your hands on. To hide the cups, you can either use tissue paper around each individual cup before you staple them or place the tissue into the pot with the cups all in the centre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slip a cupcake into each cup and voila! Bouquet snug and safe…and ready to travel. If you are worried about how secure they are you can always place a toothpick into the cup to attach the cupcake in place.  I find this method to be less fuss and secure enough for what I need, but it works for smaller bouquets better than large ones…

 

If you want to make a larger bouquet, with a little height to it, then the polystyrene ball construction technique is for you. This is a little more ‘fiddley’ and you can have cupcake fall off, but if you get it just right they are very impressive.  I would use two toothpicks for each cupcake to make them more secure, and keep them nice and close to support each other.  If you push the toothpicks into the styrofoam the right distance apart (without cupcakes), you should find that placing the cupcakes onto the toothpicks is easier than trying to push the pick into the polystyrene while it is attached to the cupcake (I hope that makes sense !)

 

There are so many ways to construct and design a cupcake bouquet. You can make these as simple or as complex as you need. As I have said many times before, you are only limited by your imagination! If you have plenty of time, make fondant butterflies, bumble bees, lady bugs or other flowers to fill in gaps.

 

 

 

 

One little note before I go this week; Giant cupcakes are just as easy to make and can also be decorated to look like a bouquet of flowers. Check out these little beauties from ‘Plush & Lush Cupcakes’

 

So, pop into the kitchen and get creative for Mother’s Day next week…happy baking!