Easy Flower Cupcakes

I love baking – especially for people. It’s something I do for those that I love – and when my sister-in-law was pregnant with her second I knew this was my chance to bake for my niece’s Birthday. So – I asked – and her mom said YES!

I had the invitation from them and decided I would make flower cupcakes inspired by those. These were something I hadn’t seen anywhere, and I wasn’t sure how they would turn out but I knew if I worked on them the day before I would have plenty of time to think of something else if they were a bust. Turns out they were SO EASY and turned out SUPER CUTE!

For these cupcakes, I made the decorations first to be sure they had time to dry. So I setup my station which is pretty simple – a large flat surface out of reach of the dog noses, and a bunch of wax paper. I lined the surface with wax paper then it was time for the candy. I used candy melts for the flowers. I melted them down in little glass jars then poured them into empty disposable piping bags. I snipped off a tiny bit of the piping bag and went to work! I started most of these with a dot in the center, then I simply piped little arches all the way around and joined the centers of the arches with the legs of another arch. Ultimately as it goes out creating a flower! Once it was done I put a circle sprinkle in the middle. Super simple, but quite the impact of the design. I did a couple other flower shapes but these were my favorite.

Next – while those dried, I started some cupcakes. My trick here is I add an extra egg to any boxed mix, and instead of the oil the box calls for, I replace it with melted butter. Then I typically flavor them all sorts of ways, but this time the request was a basic white cake so I stopped there.

Next step is the frosting – in my world ALL frosting should be homemade. I made a simple buttercream like the recipe here. Then the only real change I make is instead of all vanilla I add half almond and half vanilla. Then I colored the frosting with some Wilton gel food coloring.

My main trick with frosting is putting the frosting in saran wrap. I lay out a sheet of plastic wrap, then put the frosting out on the plastic wrap. I roll a log out of the frosting – then put that tube of goodness into a reusable piping bag with the tip of my choosing inserted. For these I used Tip 1M and did a simple rose style swirl with the frosting before placing the candy flowers on top.

Super simple but oh so cute!

Let me know what you think!