How to Make a Flower Birthday Cake Decoration

Flowers make an elegant decoration for any cake, birthday or wedding.

Creating flower decorations for birthday cakes and cupcakes takes practice, but with a steady hand, you'll have little buttercream roses in no time. Flowers must be built petal by petal using specific pastry bag tips. Pastry tips are regulated by tip size; that means no matter what brand set, it will have the same tip size number as all others. There are specific tips used for petals, leaves and stripes. It is best to invest in a good quality cake decorating pastry tip set before embarking on the art of cake decorating.

Things You'll Need

• Frosting
• Food dye
• Pastry bag
• Tip #104
• Tip #352
• Rose nail
• Wax paper

Instructions

1. Prepare your frosting. Separate the frosting into two bowls at a 2:1 ratio (place 2/3 of the frosting in one bowl and 1/3 in the other). Add green food dye to the smaller bowl and whatever color petal food dye to the larger bowl. Mix the the dye well adding more if needed.

2. Attach a small square of parchment paper, about 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch, to a rose nail with a small dab of icing to glue it in place. (Rose nails are pastry tools that look like large metal nails about 2 inches long with a flat smooth disk at the top; they are available at most pastry and kitchen supply stores.) Set it aside.

3. Fit a pastry bag with a rose tip (tip #104). Fill it with about ½ cup of the petal color frosting. Twist the end of the pastry bag tightly. Hold the pastry bag in your dominate hand, and the rose nail in the other. Angle the tip so that the thicker end of the slit is on the bottom and squeeze gently to create a small cone in the center of the nail. While forming the cone, turn the nail clockwise in your hand. Don't move the hand holding the pastry bag.

4. Build the petals from the inside out. Place the wider end of the tip on the cone (not the base of the cone, half way up it) and begin to squeeze while pulling the piping bag away from the cone so that it looks like a ribbon is going to be formed. While you are doing this, turn the nail counter-clockwise in your other hand so that the ribbon wraps around like a petal above the height of the cone. Finish the petal only once it overlaps with the beginning.

5. Pipe the outer petals by positioning the tip of the pastry bag with the narrow end straight up at the base of the inner petal. Pipe one petal up and down around the inner petal turning the nail only 1/3 of a turn. Finish the petal. Pipe two more petals in the same way (up and down) to complete the second layer around the inner petal.

6. Add a third layer of petals increasing the number to five petals rather than three (always keep an odd number). Finish the flower with three layers, or continue adding layers to create larger flowers.

7. Fit a separate pastry bag with a leaf tip (tip #352) and fill the bag with the green icing to form the leaves around the flower.

8. Hold the pastry bag at a 45 degree angle in your hand (in reference to the rose nail) and insert the tip as tightly as possible under one side of the rose close to the base. Make sure it is touching the rose in order to bind the two together. Squeeze with medium pressure to build a larger leaf base, and pull up toward you (still at 45 degrees) without any pressure, just drawing on the already piped icing to stretch. Allow the leaf to point and then repeat on the other side if you desire.

9. Allow the flower to harden and then carefully remove from the rose nail. Remove the wax paper and adhere to the cake using fresh icing.

References

• "The Culinary Institute of America"; Decorating Tips and Techniques; 2005