The Contemporary Buttercream Bible (24 page)

A

2 Place two cocktail sticks (toothpicks) in each

position where you want a cupcake. The angle of the

toothpicks should be about 30 to 45 degrees to

support the cupcakes (B).

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B

3 Arrange and stick your cupcake onto each pair of

cocktail sticks. You may adjust the cocktail sticks as necessary to position the cupcakes close together

and make sure as much of the Styrofoam ball is

covered as possible (C). Your cupcakes can be ready

decorated before you arrange them, however, to

avoid damaging your piped buttercream flowers, it’s

best to pipe them after the cupcakes are arranged

(D).

C

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D

4 Fill any gaps with ruffled paper, fabrics, ribbons

or pipe something into the gaps. You can also insert

a florist’s card holder for your message.

Tip

The decorated cupcakes can make your

bouquet top-heavy and therefore unstable.

Unless you are using a heavy clay flowerpot,

we suggest you add weight to the base by

including a bag of pebbles or something

similar.

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To create this bouquet…

• 12–15 cupcakes, standard size

• 430–570g (151⁄ oz–1lb 43

4

⁄4oz) buttercream

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• Paste colours: yellow (Sugarflair Melon and

Autumn Leaf), brown (Sugarflair Dark Brown),

green (Sugarflair Spruce Green)

• Styrofoam ball (whole or hemisphere)

• Flowerpot

• Fabric to cover pot

• Tissue paper

• Cocktail stick (toothpick)

• Ribbon

• Glue/sticky tape

• Scissors

• Florist’s card holder (optional)

Choose a monochrome fabric to cover your

flowerpot and black tissue for the styrofoam ball.

Cover the cupcakes with 150–200g (51⁄2–7oz) of

plain

buttercream.

Colour

the

remaining

buttercream in the following quantities: 130–150g

(41⁄ –51

2

⁄ oz) yellow, 100–150g (31

2

⁄ –51

2

⁄2oz) brown and

50–70g (13⁄ –21

4

⁄2oz) green. Follow the tutorial to

assemble the bouquet. Pipe the sunflowers and

leaves following the tutorial in the Piping Flowers

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chapter, adding the leaves at the end to fill in any

spaces between the cupcakes.

Cup Method

1 Join seven plastic cups together with clear sticky

tape to form the base for the bouquet (A). You can

use more than seven cups, depending on how big

you want your bouquet to be. Put some rolled sticky

tape under the cups and stick them to a paper plate

(B).

A

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B

2 Put some rolled sticky tape around your cups so it

is easier to stick the tissue paper around (C). You

can use any material you can think of – coloured

cellophane is also a nice option. When you have

covered your base, tie a ribbon of your choice

around it.

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C

3 Cut the tissue paper into big squares, we used 20

× 20cm (8 × 8in) for a bouquet of seven cupcake.

Put the squares inside each cup (D). The tissue

paper will prevent your cupcakes from disappearing

down inside if they are a little too small for the

cups.

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D

4 Lastly, arrange your floral cupcakes on your base

and accentuate with artificial, sugar or large piped

buttercream leaves (E).

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E

Tip

We highly recommend the use of sticky tape to

secure the cups. Then there is no danger of

staple wire getting into the cupcakes if a staple

comes loose.

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To create this bouquet…

• 7 cupcakes, muffin size

• 750g–1.1kg (1lb 10oz–2lb 71⁄2oz) buttercream

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• Paste colours: light purple (Sugarflair Grape

Violet),

pink

(Sugarflair

Pink),

light

green

(Sugarflair Gooseberry), green (Sugarflair Spruce