This is definitely going to be a very packed post! I have some announcements, thank you’s, a tutorial, and a FREE cookbook to give away…so get ready to have some fun! After teaching my cupcake class a few weeks ago I had a lot of readers wanting to know how I made the flower cupcakes without a pastry tip, so I thought I would share my “secret” techniques with you, my loyal blogger friends. I took a lot of photos of the process so that you would be able to “see” the process instead of just reading about how to do it. So let’s begin!
First you need a plastic disposable pastry bag. Then you need to cut the pastry bag straight across. The higher up you cut the bag the wider the petal will be, so just play around and try cutting it at different heights. I would roughly recommend cutting it about 1″-1 1/2″ up.
Then you need to cut a triangle or bird’s beak shape out of the bag. Start at one end and cut up to the center of the bag…about 1/2″ up. Then make the same cut on the opposite side of the bag. Now you have created a bird’s beak.
Now you fill the pastry bag with a swiss, french, or italian style buttercream that you have colored to the shade you want your petals. Next you need to cover the base of the cupcake with frosting. You can color it green if you want it to look like the grass the flower is sitting on…completely your preference. Once the base is covered, you need to position you pastry bag on the cupcake so that the tip is like an open bird’s beak (the seam line should be up and down, not side to side when piping). Pipe the petals by putting pressure to the bag while slowly pulling away. Then when you get to the end of the petal stop giving pressure and pull the bag away quickly…this will give you the pointed tip at the tip of the petal. Now remember, practice makes perfect so don’t expect perfect petals your first time around! You can pipe as many petals as you want around the base.
Now you pipe on a second layer of petals on top of your first layer. Then you can color some of the buttercream a different color and use it to pipe the middle of the flower. You can use a small round tip for this or just cut off a small tip of the plastic pastry bag…both will work.
One tip about the petals: to achieve a smooth petal that doesn’t have tons of air pockets you need to make sure and mix the buttercream well before using. You don’t want to whip it to make more air bubbles, but rather smooth it out with a spatula or spoon.
Here are also a couple more photos of flowers that I have done in the past. To make the ladybug you just color the buttercream red and black and fill pastry bags with #2 tips. Pipe a red dot or body first. Then pipe a smaller black dot at the top of the larger dot to make the head. Next, pipe a line of black from the head to the bottom of the body. Lastly, pipe on some small dots of black for the ladybug spots.
I made these for Christmas time to look like Poinsettias.
You can also use this tip to make large leaves for a flower. Of course stores also have pastry tips for this, but if you don’t have one you can use this technique.
Now for the announcement! One exciting event that has happened lately is that I was written about in a feature article in the blog AisleDash. They were so fun to work with and I was really happy to share my thoughts and opinions on this wonderful career as a pastry chef with them.
I also wanted to thank Bellissima Vita for featuring one of my cakes on their website!
And last, but certainly not least I wanted to thank Mimi on the Move and Picky Palate for the sweet blog awards they gave me! They both have fantastic blogs and I highly recommend you check them out!
As a thank you to all of my readers I wanted to give away another free cookbook. Now this isn’t just any cookbook, it is one of my new favorite cookbooks…Warren Brown’s new book Cake Love!!!
So just leave a comment below and I will select a random winner Monday night…so make sure you enter by midnight! Thanks again to all my loyal readers…I appreciate your support more than you know!
