Recipes, Spring, Stories

Mother’s Day Cupcake Bouquet Recipe

Mother’s are very special creatures, always loving, caring and putting everybody before them selves. They’re our teachers, nurses and friends, so surely they deserve spoiling just one day a year!

We’ve hand picked a selection of beautiful gifts, guaranteed to make her smile.

Homemade gifts are a great way to pad out a present, this Flower Bouquet is simple to make and well worth the effort . If you can, make the cupcakes the day before.

Materials You Will Need

  • Vase or flower pot
  • Styrofoam ball
  • Toothpicks
  • Paper cups
  • Scissors
  • Sticky putty (poster putty)
  • Hot glue gun (or other glue)
  • Cupcakes baked in green liners
  • Extra green cupcake liners
  • Piping bags
  • Large star tip

For the cupcakes:

  • 300g Butter (unsalted) (at room temperature)
  • 300g White caster sugar
  • 6 Eggs
  • 300g Self-raising white flour
  • 1 tsp Vanilla extract

For the buttercream:

  • 400g Butter (unsalted)
  • 500g Icing sugar
  • 0.5 tsp Lemon extract
  • 0.5 tsp Rose water
  • Yellow food colouring
  • Pink food colouring

Method:

  1. Heat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan, gas mark 4). Line 2 cup cake trays with 24 paper cupcake cases.
  2. Place the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat with a wooden spoon or electric mixer until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs a little at a time until smooth, adding a little flour if the mixture curdles.
  3. Stir in the flour and vanilla extract until smooth.
  4. Place heaped dessertspoon full in each cupcake case and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and just firm to the touch. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely. They are best made the day before if possible.
  5. To make the buttercreams, mix 200g of the softened butter with 250g of icing sugar in two separate bowls until smooth. In one bowl add 1/2 teaspoon of lemon extract and a few drops of yellow food colouring, in the other bowl add 1/2 teaspoon of rose water and a few drops of pink food colouring.

Crafting the Bouquet

Place a styrofoam ball into a flower pot or wide-mouth vase. The ball should have the same diameter as the vase or be a tiny bit smaller. Anchor it to the vase with a little bit of sticky putty or hot glue if you plan on reusing it. I used a 6-inch round ball for my bouquet base. 

The extra work of cutting and gluing paper cups to the styrofoam ball may seem like a pain, but toothpicks alone will not do the job. Trust me: there will be heartbreak if you skip this step.

 Cut off the bottom of a paper cup, leaving the sides about 1 inch tall. Repeat with enough cups for all of your cupcakes. Add a drop of hot glue to the bottom of one of the cut cups. Glue the cup to the styrofoam ball so the edge sits on the edge of the vase.

Push a toothpick through the bottom of the cup into the styrofoam ball. Leave about ½-inch of toothpick sticking up. Insert two more toothpicks to create a triangular shape.

Repeat with more cups and toothpicks all the way around the edge of the vase, then fill in the top of the ball. Use three toothpicks in the cups on the side of the ball and two toothpicks in the cups on top of the ball. Place the cups as close to each other as possible, but don’t worry if there are some gaps. We’ll fill them in later.

Add the cupcakes

Place cupcakes inside the cups. Make sure all the toothpicks in each cup pierce the cupcake paper to anchor the desserts.

Fill in the empty spaces

Turn a cupcake liner inside out and gather the sides together, creating a little ruffle. Use the ruffle to fill in the gaps between the paper cups.

If needed, anchor the ruffle with a toothpick. Repeat until all the gaps are filled.

Pipe the frosting

Now to decorate ! Fit the piping bag with the large star tip, then fill with your tinted buttercreams. I used solid pink and yellow for my mix of hydrangeas and rosettes, but feel free to do it your way. You can even mix colors in your piping bag to make flowers with variegated petals, or make a dramatic monochrome arrangement with flowers all in the same shade. 

To pipe hydrangeas:

Hold the piping bag vertically about ¼-inch from the surface of a cupcake. Apply pressure and allow the buttercream to billow out of the tip, creating a single, small blossom. Release pressure when all the petals of the blossom are touching. Repeat and overlap blossoms until the cupcake is covered.

To pipe rosettes:

Hold the piping bag vertically over the center of the cupcake less than ¼-inch from the surface. Apply pressure to the bag until the frosting makes contact with the cupcake. Continue applying pressure while moving the tip in a circular motion around the center. Begin to decrease pressure as you finish the circle you’re piping. Release pressure entirely and pull the tip down and away from the swirl to finish.

See how using a mix of different flowers really amps up the texture? Total wow factor.

Once you’re done piping, pop your bouquet into the fridge for at least 20 minutes so it sets up firm. Don’t take it out until it’s go time. If the arrangement is nice and cold, it’s much more likely that everything will stay put while you’re moving it.

There you have it! A super simple, gorgeous present, perfect for your mother! Let us know if you make this recipe by tagging us in any photographs on any of of social media channels.

Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers out there!

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One thought on “Mother’s Day Cupcake Bouquet Recipe

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