Wedding Cupcakes, How to Make Sugar Flowers and some Reviews

I was delighted to be asked to make some cupcakes for the wedding of my boyfriend's lovely cousin and her fiance. They wanted the cupcakes for the evening buffet, and the bride sent me a photo of some she liked, which were covered in white with white roses and bows. She also told me that the wedding colours were white and pale pink. I didn't have much time (as I didn't get a huge amount of notice) and wasn't sure I could make that many edible decorations in time, so the bride-to-be had found a website where we could also buy some. I ended up using a combination of both and also came across a product that made making edible flowers a lot quicker and easier, which I will review below.

I spent several evenings over the course of a week making the flowers. I used flower paste, as you can roll it thinner and it dries harder than fondant, so is ideal for modelling.

The Craft Company is a supplier of cake decorating products, ingredients and baking equipment that I have used before and have always been pleased with their service and quality. They contacted me to ask if I would like to review a product from their range, and I chose this blossom cutter and mould set, which costs £9.98. It is also available in other flower shapes including butterfly, daisy, hydrangea and petunia. I chose the 'blossom' shape as I thought it would be ideal for the wedding cupcakes.

The set is very simple to use. Roll out the flower paste and use the cutter to cut out the shapes.

Place the flower shape on one side of the silicon mould - one side has an indent and the other side is raised.

Close the mould and press down gently - you don't actually need to press very hard at all.

Open it out and you have a beautiful flower with petal details. This is really quick and easy to use and would be a God-send if you are having to make a lot of flowers for a big cake or lots of cupcakes. I was sent this free of charge but is definitely something I would have spent my own money on. The cutter and mould also comes with an instruction leaflet which was easy to follow.

I made several flowers in the space of just a few minutes and left them to dry.

It's also very easy to colour the flowers (or use coloured flowerpaste in the first place). I used pink lustre dust on the flowers, giving more coverage to some than to others.

As I mentioned, I also bought some cupcake toppers, from a website called Sugar Sugar Cake Decorations. There was a wide selection of products to choose from, and in several different colours. I ordered some bows, large roses and small roses in white, and mini sprays of roses in pink. Everything is handmade to order and you are asked to allow a few days drying time; these arrived in the space of a week and were carefully packaged in tissue paper and bubble wrap. I was also really pleased that the box was flat enough that it went through my letterbox - I can only get to the local sorting office once a week due to their opening hours so was a bit worried if I would get these in time for the wedding but they were delivered to my door.

Here you can see the products I ordered; they weren't too expensive though it's obviously cheaper to make your own if you can - I knew I wouldn't have enough time and I was happy to cover the cost of the cupcake ingredients, toppers and wrappers as my present to the happy couple.

I also decided to make some roses myself and used this Jem Easy Rose cutter which I also bought at Cake International, though you can get it from many stockists online. It's really easy to use once you know what you're doing, and did come with an instruction leaflet. Roll out your sugarpaste and use the cutter to press down and make a flower shape.

Roll a small piece of flower paste into a cone, and place in the middle of the flower.

Fold up each petal in turn, curling it around the cone in the middle. When you've done that, cut out another flower, place the rose you've just made on top, and curl up the petals of the second flower.

You may need a little edible glue on the second flower to get the petals to stick. Once you've folded them around, ease back the edges of some of the outer petals to create a curve at the top.

 I bought this PME pink lustre spray at Cake International. It's really easy to use and you can either give an even coverage or more of a subtle hint depending on how you spray it.

I gave some of the roses a light coating and left them to dry. I left the other flowers white.

 I also made one rose out of pink sugar paste but I decided the pink was too dark for what I wanted. Here are a selection of the flowers I made.

The bride had requested vanilla cupcakes, which I have to admit made my life easier! I used a simple recipe that turned out to be really light and fluffy; I usually find vanilla cupcakes too plain to be interesting but these were extremely good.

You need:
225g butter
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
225g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

Cream the butter and the sugar, then mix in the eggs and fold in the flour and the baking powder. Add the vanilla extract. Bake in the oven at 175C for about 15 minutes; it will depend on the size of the cupcakes.

Most of the cakes were either flat or only slightly raised which was good. I covered some in fondant; I cut out circles with a pastry cutter and secured onto the cakes with a thin layer of buttercream.

I used more buttercream to fix the roses I had made onto the cakes. I was really pleased with these.

Pink and white rose cupcakes - I actually liked these more than the edible flowers I bought, though I have to admit they did save me a lot of time, as I wouldn't have been able to make enough of these to go on to every cupcake (I made nearly 60 cupcakes in the end).

I wanted to put cake wrappers around the cakes and found a website called Essesea that offered personalised cupcake wrappers, among other items. I chose plain white wrappers which I personalised with the name of the bride and groom and the date of their wedding.

Unfortunately I found that when I put these around the cupcakes they weren't quite big enough, and I had to secure them with sellotape (rather than tucking tab A into slot B, as they didn't quite reach). I think it's because I used large cupcake cases -the website does say these wrappers will fit standard-sized cupcakes rather than large muffin-sized cakes, so it's my own fault. They worked fine in the end with the sellotape anyway, and I thought they looked really good; the bride was very pleased when she spotted them.

The wrappers were 50p each so would be quite expensive if you needed a lot; I used these for some but not all of the cupcakes.

I covered most of the other cakes with royal icing and then placed the toppers I had bought over the internet on top. I also decorated some of the cupcakes with tiny white pearls all the way around the edge - it took a long time and was very fiddly so I didn't do all of them that way.

I bought some more cupcake wrappers from a website called Cake Craft World; they were only £1.99 for a pack of 12 so a lot cheaper than the others. They are a solid colour with a delicate rose pattern, so not quite as nice as lacy wrappers but a lot cheaper. They were also easy to fix together and fit around my cupcakes perfectly.

Here's a cupcake with a smooth royal icing top and one of the flowers I made using the blossom cutter and mould from the Craft Company.

A selection of cupcakes, some with the flowers I made and some with the decorations I ordered:

I also piped some buttercream roses onto some of the cupcakes; I will do a separate post on this.

 I took a couple of my cake stands to the wedding reception, and put them out with the cupcakes for the evening reception.

I was quite pleased with how these turned out and I had several nice comments from other guests at the wedding. I also created a cupcake bouquet but I think that deserves a separate post all to itself!

Thanks to The Craft Company for sending me the blossom cutter and mould set to review; I was not required to write a positive review and all opinions are my own. I paid for the other items mentioned in this post with my own money and chose the suppliers myself.