Cute Succulent Cupcakes - Almost too pretty to eat… Almost!

Okay. You know succulents are plants, right? But they’re no ordinary plants with wispy leaves and dainty flowers. They’re like the musclemen of plants, with thick, fleshy leaves, made to survive in the desert for a long time without water. They’re like....oomph, I’m a PLANT! 
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​And succulent flowers make quite a statement, too, in bold colors and flamboyant shapes. Definitely worth copying in frosting to top a cupcake. So that’s what we’re going to do and, in the process, we’re going to experiment with a whole bunch of piping techniques. Yay!
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First, make some cupcakes. A dozen will do. For today, it doesn’t much matter what kind, because we’re just using them for a base on top of which we’re going to create our floral beauties. So let’s get started! 

Arm yourself with your cooled cupcakes and however many pastry tubes you want, each with its own frosting color and tip. I started with eight of them, every one different. Some had single colors, some had more than one color to make stripes, and some had colors not quite blended for texture and depth. 
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The moment of truth comes when you pick one up and squeeze. Flowers start at their middle and their petals or leaves surround them, so once you start, you’ll hold the cupcake in the palm of your hand, turning it as you go. With each application of the pastry tube, you have to make sure you start with the frosting sticking to the surface of the cupcake. The strokes pull, or sometimes twist a little, into the shape you’re looking for. Each new row goes right next to the one before it. Keep turning and squeezing and you’ll find your rhythm. 

Honestly, it just takes practice. The video really helps to understand what each stroke looks like, so take a look at it. It’s not nearly as hard as it seems. To help, instead of an ingredient list, I’m giving you a list of the tips I used and the kind of design each of them makes.
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Wilton 366 leaf
Wilton 4B Large Open Star
Ateco #5 round
Wilton 102 Small petal
Wilton 104 Large petal
JR 79 Curved petal
Wilton 30 Closed star  (deeper grooves)
Wilton 32 Medium Open star

And that’s it! The cool thing about the video is that you can see exactly how each petal or leaf or bud is made, and how they look together. And if you make each one different, like I did, you’ll have an honest-to-goodness garden when you’re done! Just be careful if you decide to smell the roses...you might get frosting on your nose!
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