Blooming Cupcakes

When it comes to birthdays, I love a good cupcake. However, if I'm being honest.. I get a little bored of just arranging them on a platter when presenting them to the birthday boy or girl. Sure for a party, they look nice when arranged on a cupcake tower.... but this spring I wanted to do something a little different.

Recently, I was able to put my creative juices to work when I was asked to make some cupcakes for a teacher in my daughter's school. I was told she likes blues, greens, butterflies and chocolate. After trolling the internet for inspiration, I decided to do a blooming flowerpot of cupcakes, and finished with some fake leaves and butterflies.

For the first 15 minutes after assembly, I think the bouquet looked amazing. But then... the weight of the buttercream started to prove too great for the angle in which some of the cupcakes were attached, and started to slide off the cupcake bases. Overall, I'd rate this project GOOD.... but not awesome.

When I delivered the bouquet to the school, another teacher saw the cupcakes and contacted me to see if I could do something for her daughter's birthday that weekend. She was having a shabby chic theme, and thought it would be great to have a cupcake centerpiece. not being able to resist the chance to improve upon the last concept, I eagerly agreed and set about thinking of a way to make it better... and less heavy.

What I came up with was essentially a topiary structure (all pale pinks, greens and ivory... totally shabby chic!) which hosted MINI cupcakes instead of the full sized buttercream beasts I used last time.

I absolutely loved the way this came out, and at the center of a long table, it looked completely darling next top the lace napkins and china place settings. As seen from the picture below, the mini cakes were able to defy gravity much better than their heavier counterparts.

My only regret is that the icing roses got a bit hard... especially the thinner edges of the rose 'petals'. At least the cupcakes were soft! Next time I do a centerpiece like this, I will be sure to find a hybrid solution. perhaps just a single dome structure, but use the minis instead of the regular sized cupcakes. I think the lighter weight and removing the need to defy gravity will allow me to use a softer buttercream that won't dry out so fast... OR slide off.