These Mother’s Day cupcakes with beautiful homemade floral decorations are sure to put a smile on your mum’s face this Mother’s Day! These beautiful floral cupcakes aren’t as tricky to make as they look. Just follow our instructions to make the toppers yourself. Or, if you are short on time, you can buy ready-made decorations instead.
These classic cupcakes contain a delicious strawberry centre for a lovely, summery flavour. Serve these floral cupcakes as a pretty pudding after a family Mother’s Day lunch, or make them with the kids.
If you’re looking for a slightly larger dessert, why not check out our Mother’s Day cake ideas instead?
Ingredients
- 150g caster sugar
- 150g butter
- 140g self-raising flour
- 10g cornflour
- 3 medium eggs
- 30ml milk
- 1tsp vanilla extract
- 12 tsp strawberry jam
- For the buttercream
- :
- 110g butter, room temperature
- 500g icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 60ml milk
- For the flowers
- :
- Ready-made flower and butterfly decorations
- OR
- 100g of ready-to-use sugar flower paste (such as Squires)
- Edible glue or 5g piece of flower paste dissolved in 1tbsp boiling water to make a paste.
- Food colouring paste of your choice (Victoria used Sugarflair - a tiny amount of Red Extra for the pink, Grape Violet for the lilac, Gooseberry for the green, Egg Yellow for the yellow, Petal Blue for the butterfly.)
- You will also need
- :
- Piping bag
- Star-tip icing nozzle (such as a Wilton 1M)
- Ready-made flower and butterfly decorations or various cutters to make the flowers and butterfly by hand (Victoria used butterfly, flower and daisy centre cutters from cakecraftworld.co.uk and the Blossom Art Petunia Veiner from design-a-cake.co.uk )
- Sprinkles for the centres of the cakes
Method
To make the cakes:
- To make this cupcake recipe, preheat the oven to 160°C/325°F/Gas Mark 3 and line a 12-hole muffin tray with cupcake cases.
- Put all the ingredients (minus the jam) into a large bowl and beat with an electric whisk until smooth. Don’t over beat.
- Divide the mixture evenly between the paper cases, filling each to 3/4 full. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until springy to the touch. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before leaving to cool completely on a wire rack.
- When the cakes have cooled, use an apple corer to remove the middle from each cake, saving it for later. Add 1 tsp of strawberry jam to the centre of each cake and replace the piece of cake, pushing it down on top of the jam.
To make the buttercream icing:
- Add butter, icing sugar and vanilla extract to a large mixing bowl, then beat for about 5 minutes with an electric whisk until smooth.
- Pour the milk in gradually and only if you need to loosen the mixture.
To make the sugar flowers and butterflies (optional):
- Divide the flower paste into 4. Colour 1 section pink, 1 yellow and 1 blue, keeping the 4th section white for the daisies.
- Using your flower cutters, cut out 12 of each flower. Make the primrose and hydrangea look more realistic by using the petunia veiner – place the flower in the centre of the veiner and press the 2 sides together.
- With the leftover yellow paste, make 12 daisy centres using a daisy centre stamps.
- You should have some leftover white paste from making the daisies. Divide into 2 and colour 1 section lilac and 1 section green. Cut out lots of mini blossom flowers and a few leaf or heart-shapes for the leaves. Score the centre of the leaves using the blunt side of a knife.
- Add the pearl sprinkles to the centre of the flowers by placing a touch of edible glue (you don’t need to buy glue, just make some by dissolving a 5g piece of flower paste in 1tbsp boiling water to make a paste) in the centre and sticking the sprinkles in.
- Roll the blue petal paste out to 1/8inch thick and leave to dry for 5 minutes before cutting the butterflies with a butterfly cutter.
Piping a swirl:
- When the cakes are cool, attach the star nozzle to a large piping bag and place it in a tall glass.
- Pull the top of the bag down around the glass, and fill the bag 2/3 full, pushing the buttercream down into the bag as you fill.
- Lift the bag up from around the glass. From where the buttercream stops, push all the air up out of the bag and twist the bag right at the top of the buttercream.
- Hold the twist between your thumb and forefinger.
- To pipe a swirl, Hold the twist between your thumb and forefinger and apply pressure to the top of the bag. Starting in the middle of the cake, pipe a star by squeezing a star shape, then releasing the pressure and pulling up quickly. This means your swirl doesn’t fall flat in the middle. Then, starting at the outside edge of the paper case, using it as a guide, follow it around, piping around the star and build up into a swirl.
- When you reach the end of the swirl press down slightly, release the pressure and pull up quickly.
- Top immediately with flowers and butterflies.
