How to make a Cupcake Bouquet, step-by-step!

As this is a question I get asked quite a bit, I decided to photo my latest cupcake bouquet every step of the way to show exactly how it's done. It's fairly easy to do and by using different colours and decorations you can create a beautiful bouquet that not only looks lovely but tastes great too! 

You will need:

A suitable container (I like to use metal buckets that are easily available from florist suppliers, they are approx 6" across - you could also use terracotta pots or anything else of a suitable size that takes your fancy), plastic disposable cups, various coloured tissue paper, sellotape and a stapler.
Optional: cellophane, ribbon, sugarpaste, elastic band, edible glitter.

You also, of course, need a batch of cupcakes plus enough buttercream to decorate them! You will only need seven but my recipe makes twelve so plenty to nibble on later ;)

This time I used good old vanilla for both cake and buttercream but you can use any flavour combination you wish.

Method:

To start off, you need 7 plastic cups, arrange them into this shape:

Now, at this point, you can either staple them together as they are or you can do as I did and wrap some tissue paper around each cup (sellotape comes in handy here just to keep in place) before stapling for an even lovelier effect, like this:

If you'd like to use cellophane, now is the time to wrap it around your pot as it's much more fiddly to do it later on - cut a big square of cellophane, turn your pot upside down and secure with an elastic band, don't worry that it looks awful, we can pretty it up later!

Next, take a sheet of a different colour tissue paper which will complement your icing colours, cut in half and lay out flat across each other:

Lay the tissue sheets over the top of your container and gently push your cup arrangement downwards pushing the tissue paper with it.

Ok, you're ready to ice your cupcakes! For these ones, I used a Wilton 2D nozzle in a piping bag and painted a stripe of red extra colouring up the seam of the bag before filling with buttercream to get a two tone effect with the icing.

Another optional bit now! To make the cakes a little bit more special, I rolled out some red sugarpaste and used a plunger cutter to make some flowers, added one to each cake and then dusted each cupcake with some edible glitter.

To assemble your bouquet, simply pop a cupcake into each cup holder! I then tied a length of red ribbon around the pot to cover that elastic band!

And there you have it, a gorgeous bouquet of cupcakes! Perfect for a present :)

Happy Baking :)