How to Make Icing Tulips

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Use icing tulips to enhance a bright and cheerful birthday or other special occasion cake for a bakery-worthy look. Tulip-themed cakes make ideal Mother's Day, Easter and garden tea party desserts. Use vibrantly colored icing in shades of yellow, orange, purple, red and pink to create the sweet flower decor. Use can also use icing tulips to decorate homemade or store-bought cupcakes, chocolates, sugar cookies, brownies and petit fours for a customized look.

Color homemade or store-bought icing with icing pastes, which are more concentrated than liquid food coloring. Create several tulip-inspired icing colors in individual bowls.

Equip a pastry bag with a star tip #13. Spoon icing into the bag, filling only half of it.

Hold the bag at a 45-degree angle from the top of the dessert. Squeeze the bag and make one icing petal. Create two more icing petals on each side of the first one to create the tulip bloom. Make the flower as small or as large as you desire.

Use a separate pastry bag for each icing color if you're creating tulips in more than one hue. Wash out the pastry bag and tip between colors if you only have one of each.

Fill a pastry bag halfway with green icing. Equip the bag with a leaf tip #67. Hold the bag at a 45-degree angle from the dessert and squeeze it to create a leaf shape underneath each icing tulip.