Right from the word go, when I first started piping buttercream flowers my aim was to make my floral cupcakes look as realistic as possible. I set myself a goal! to fool my customers into thinking they were real flowers! This happened quite early on for me as I am not like most creative people, I don’t strive for perfection. I aim for realism. Real flowers are not perfect, every single flower that is grown is different. If I have a dodgy rose or a tulip that’s flopping over I still put it into my cupcake bouquet. I DO NOT repipe anything. It is a waste of my time and money. Customers do not see what we see, flaws and all….. All they see is the beautiful end product.
We are all guilty of looking at other bakers work and being envious of their skill set and wanting that for ourselves. This can be done, it is just practice. But, and it’s a big BUT don’t try and copy what they do. You will never be able to pipe like someone else. That does not mean yours won’t be beautiful what I mean is we all have our own style. We are all taught as young children how to write. But we all have different handwriting don’t we!. That’s because we are all unique. So, yes practice as much you can but be content with how your flowers turn out. Don’t be like someone else. This goes hand in hand with your brand. I know who’s piped cupcake bouquets that I see on my feeds before I’ve even seen the name of who piped it! Because I know their style and it becomes familiar to me… This is the sign of good brand.
As you’ve probably seen on my website I have over 70 individual flower tutorials so I know it can be very overwhelming when it comes to choosing which flowers you would like to learn and purchase. Especially if you have just started out it can feel like a mine field. I get it trust me!!
When it comes to arranging your flowers into the bouquet structure there is a free download explaining where to place the Statement flowers, Height Flowers, Intricate flowers and Textured Flowers. You will only receive this if you have purchased one of my wrapping tutorials.
Take make this more streamlined and self explanatory for everyone I have sorted my buttercream flowers into the four elements categories.
These are your large flowers that are the focal point of your cupcake bouquets. I would only recommend having one variety of statement flower in your bouquet. 1. Because it is very hard to squeeze more than one variety of statement flowers into your bouquet structure.
2. Because generally speaking the statement flowers use more buttercream. More cost to you. Keeps your costs down.
Note: you always load your statement flowers last into your cupcake bouquet structure, so you don’t crush the petals as they are the larger of all the flowers.
If you look at any real flower bouquets I would be very surprised if there wasn’t some sort of ‘height’ flowers in that arrangement. For example there will probably be eucalyptus, Buddleias, ferns. Because I aim for realism, this is why I incorporate height into most of my cupcake bouquets. Again, I generally only put one variety of height flowers into my cupcake bouquet. I have been known to do two lots but I then get myself in a tizzy as to where to place them.
Because you have the large statement flower and the tall flowers or foliage for height you then need to add some detail into the next variety of flowers. This will include any buttercream flowers that have either buds, mini flowers, blossom or more than one detailed flower on one cupcake. For example mini roses with buds. Mini sunflowers, semi open tulips with buds. I personally always call these my busy cupcakes.
Best described at the buttercream flowers that look fluffy. You need to add some texture to your cupcake bouquets and the texture is a crucial element. It makes the customer almost want to touch them.
I hope you’ve found this helpful, Please comment below I’d love read your feedback.
Jane x
If you are looking for the FREE PDF Download for Bouquet layouts, please go here
