Everything’s Coming Up Roses!

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Wow, time sure flies when you’re having fun! Or just busy. Either way, I had the best intentions (the very best, I swear!) to make several blog posts before I went on my five week vacation to visit my family in the US that I could post so there wouldn’t be quite such a lapse in my blog.  Obviously, that didn’t happen. And once on vacation, we were fortunate enough to get lots of quality family time, followed by the arrival of several of my good Norwegian friends. We went white water rafting, took surfing lessons, visited an arcade bar, took in a scenic hike, and just when we thought we couldn’t have anymore fun, my Mum returned to Norway with us for a two week visit. Needless to say it’s been a busy (in a good sort of way) summer. But even though a fun summer has come and passed, I can at least console myself by jumping back into some much missed baking time! And having recently returned from the US where I was able to stock up on a number of hard to find baking items, I’ve finally got the supplies to make something I’ve seen all over the internet and have really been wanting to make for a long time!

Cupcake Bouquet
Makes one 6” cupcake bouquet

Supplies:
One 6″ foam ball
Toothpicks
A flower pot
Tissue paper
Green tissue paper or shredded paper
Approximately 20-24 cupcakes

Although you can really use any cupcake flavor you’d like, I couldn’t resist using my favorite: red velvet. However, depending on the color of flowers you plan to make (which will correspond to frosting colors), you might consider how much any gaps in the frosting might be seen (dark cupcakes with light frosting can create obvious gaps). For my bouquet, this meant I was extra careful when frosting with the white to make sure there were no gaps. I actually got my inspiration for this bouquet from searching wedding bouquets on Google, and it’s actually not too far off from the bouquet I had at my own wedding. What can I say, I’m a sucker for reds and yellows.

Although assembly itself is theoretically rather straight forward, it’s nonetheless tricky and time consuming in practice. I certainly would not recommend last minute assembly. I would, however, recommend having extra cupcakes on hand for the few inevitable times your grip slips and takes out a chunk of frosting. Start by securing your foam ball in it’s pot. If the fit is good, you should be able to carefully wedge it in. If not, you can secure it with a sticky putty. If neither of these methods end up working out for you (my ball didn’t quite fit and there was no sticky putty to be had), you can at the very least keep the ball balanced by adding toothpicks where the ball meets the pot to keep it level. Once the ball is secure (or at least level), you can start adding cupcakes.

Start at the top with a single cupcake. Insert 2-3 toothpicks into the foam ball, and gently push the cupcake down until it rests against the ball. From the first cupcake, you can begin to make your first layer down the sides of the ball. Work around the foam ball in a circular ring, getting the cupcakes as close to each other as possible. As you work your way down the foam ball, make sure your toothpicks stick up from the ball at a 45 degree angle, regardless of which way the tops of the cupcakes may be facing. This will keep your cupcakes from sliding off. If you’re having issues getting any of the cupcakes secured, you can use an extra toothpick or two to pin them to the ball. Continue working your way down the ball until there’s about a one row space between the ball and the pot.

Gently lift the ball out of the pot and line around the top of the pot with tissue paper. Make sure the tissue paper sticks up far enough to cover the empty space between the pot and the last row of cupcakes. This empty space gives you a nice place to grip if your ball is not sufficiently secured (like mine) and you plan on transporting it (or moving it in general). Use the green tissue or shredded paper to fill any gaps between the cupcakes. You can also pipe some leaves with green frosting around the edges to help fill in gaps as well.

Happy baking!

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