THE NEED FOR SPEED

As you probably saw last week on my Instagram stories I showed you a day in the life of piping. I made 2 x 30 cupcake bouquets and 2 x 12 cupcake bouquets.

As I always say and state in all of my blogs that being organised and prepared is key 🔑

Batch baking lots and lots of cupcakes. Freezing them. Batch making your buttercream, pop it in the fridge, remember it lasts in the fridge for as long as the expiry date on the packs of butter.

With orders that are booked in the diary, make your cup structures plus extras. I have lots of 12 and 7 bouquet structures made and ready for last minute orders. Cut lots of tissue paper, make your bows, label your boxes etc etc then all that is to be done on the day is piping.

Sounds simple and it is as simple as that. When it comes to your actual orders and piping. DON’T PROCRASTINATE!

Depending on what your customer has asked for then use my 4 elements to help you choose, height, statement, textured and intricate flowers. I have all of this info for you on my online courses page making it easier for you to choose. I have categorised all of my flowers into the correct category. Some do cross over for example a hydrangea can be used as texture and statement. Don’t spend too much time debating, make a choice and stick with it. For example if someone asked me for a 12 luxury bouquet in pinks I would use the following;

3 pink peonies
3 darker pink delicate petal mini roses
3 light green dahlias
3 white buddleia with handpiped tulips

Done ☑️

Colouring seems to be something that takes a lot of my students longer than necessary. If you struggle with colouring try this. Add some of your gel colouring you’re using to your empty piping bag and rub the bag between your hands making sure the gel covers the whole of the inside. Then add uncoloured buttercream. It’s perfect for two toning and gives you the darker shade to begin with and then as the piping bag needs reloading simply just add more uncoloured buttercream. This trick gives you so many different shades thus making your luxury bouquet more realistic.

Also remember as an example;

If you’ve piped say some peach peonies with left over buttercream but you need to now make more leaves the simply add olive green gel colouring to the peach buttercream.. simple.

You use such a little amount of gel colouring that it is better for reducing the amount of additives etc going into your homemade product. This is why I use gels as opposed to sugar paste because you need such a tiny amount.

One of my students asked me if I write down and design my cupcake bouquets before I pipe?

No is the short answer, all of my ideas are in my head. I can visualise what something will look like so I make a decision and stick with it. I do this with everything in life. I can visualise what I want my lounge to look like if we are redecorating even down to accessories
and where they will be placed. I then go and source them all and stick with it. Maybe it’s my OCD I’m not sure, but it works for me.

You can probably see from all of my cupcake bouquet designs I tend to stick to certain flowers if I’m busy.

Roses or peonies
Delicate petal mini roses
Dahlias
Buddleia

If I’ve been given free rein on design I will then have a play and try something new.

One thing I cannot stress enough is don’t keep scraping off and re piping. The customer does not see what you
See. Does it look like a rose? Yes, but it’s not how I want it to look! Oh well, that will come in time so don’t scrape it off load it and leave it. Every time you scrape off and start again you are wasting time and money.

PIPE IT, WRAP IT, SEND IT OUT

You will only see progress from volume of piping. You’re not aiming for perfection you are aiming for progress and realism. So what if you’ve got a broken petal, or you’ve squished a tulip, pipe a leaf there 🤣

Speed is key to you making a profit!

Get your speed up, you can take on more orders which in turn makes you more money.

PRACTICE MAKES PROGRESS

I hope this has helped break down a busy piping day!

Lots of love

Jane x