Flowering Cupcakes

This past weekend was my step-daughter, Michaela's, 'BABY BBQ' (basically a jack & jill style baby shower - though we hated to use the word "shower").. Just a casual get together for all to celebrate the arrival of her (and bf's) little princess, sometime next month!  Of course I was in charge of making dessert ;)  ..Michaela decided early on she wanted cupcakes rather than a cake.. flavors, however, came much later and after much deliberation!  She also wanted to incorporate flowers into the look of the cupcakes.  Hmmmmm..... I debated doing fondant flowers vs. frosting flowers for a bit.. then we both sort of agreed on making them out of the frosting on the cupcakes.  For flavors, we eventually settled on three.. 1) Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana, 2) Lemon Blackberry, and 3) Strawberry Cheesecake.. each flavor to be frosted with a different flower type.  

For the Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana.. I made a Banana cupcake with Peanut Butter filling, then iced it with Chocolate Buttercream in 'Rose' fashion (which is a pretty simple technique using a Wilton tip 2D, starting in the center of the cupcake and working your way outward in a counter-clockwise motion).  I have done this technique previously and it's simple yet elegant looking.

The Strawberry Cheesecakes.. a basic strawberry cupcake topped with cheesecake filling for the icing.  I again replicated a flower I have previously done, the hydrangea.  These look so realistic, I just LOVE them!

Lastly, the Lemon Blackberry.. a basic lemon cupcake topped with Blackberry buttercream (new to me and a perfect summertime frosting).  I decided to try a new flower design for this one, something I had not done previously but have seen a lot.  They sometimes refer to it as a 'fantasy flower'.. it's about 3 layers of piped petals on top of the cupcake (using a petal tip of course).  I LOVED the way this one turned out.. though my blackberry buttercream was a little soft for this design (I had to keep refrigerating it while working).. they still turned out beautiful!

Here are some pics of the completed cupcakes on my cupcake tower at the party (I wish I thought to do individual shots of each but oh well.. you get the idea)  ..Michaela loved them and I received many compliments on them as well :)

Cupcake Signage.. I find this to be very helpful when there are a lot of people at an event.. saves me (or the hosts) from having to describe flavors all day long!    

 My best close-up shot of the different 'flowers'

 The Cupcake Tower!