Cupcake Bouquet Recipe

Gather together all of your materials (flower pot, foam ball, marbles).

Pour the marbles into the bottom of the flower pot to add weight and create a stable base for the cupcake bouquet.

Cut the bottom off of the foam ball, and insert the top into the flower pot, round side up. The ball should fit tightly; if it doesn't, you may want to tape it down with some floral tape to keep it stable when you add the cupcakes. The ball MUST be stable so it doesn't come loose and dump your cupcake bouquet!

Cover the ball with a square of pink or yellow tissue paper to hide it, tucking edges of the tissue paper between the ball and the pot.

Color 2 cups of your decorator icing pink with the pink food coloring.

Color 2 cups of your decorator icing brown with the brown food coloring (or alternately, you can use chocolate frosting).

Decorate half of your cupcakes with the pink icing in a rose petal pattern: using your Wilton #1 decorating tip, squeeze the pink icing in a circular motion from the inside out on the top of the cupcake.

Decorate half of your cupcakes with the pink icing in a rose petal pattern: using your Wilton #1 decorating tip, squeeze the pink icing in a circular motion from the inside out on the top of the cupcake.

Fill a pastry bag with the brown icing and attach the Wilton #32 decorator tip (or similar tip) to decorate the other half of your cupcakes to look like the seeds in the center of sunflowers.

Make the sunflower center: put the tip straight down on top of the cupcake, squeeze and lift up to create a little star. Repeat to fill the top of the cupcake with little stars that look like sunflower seeds. Then slip the cupcakes into the yellow pleated cupcake wraps to complete the sunflower look.

Assemble the cupcake bouquet by inserting one wooden stick into the top of the Styrofoam ball. Push the stick into the Styrofoam until it holds firm. Then push a cupcake gently (and carefully) onto the top of the stick. You may want to use the tip of a sharp knife to pierce the cupcake wrapper in the center of the bottom of the cupcake, before you pierce it with the stick.

Start inserting more sticks and topping them with cupcake flowers. Be very careful balance the weight as you go by keeping the number of cupcakes on each side of the flower pot as even as possible. If the cupcake bouquet gets too heavy on one side, it might tip over. Keep inserting cupcakes, alternating sides, roses and sunflowers, until the cupcake bouquet is as full all the way around.