Birthday Cupcakes

I think birthday cupcakes are a cool alternative to the normal standard cakes. Firstly it’s easier to estimate the serving size with cupcakes (you just need to know how many guests will be there and you address that by making cupcakes in the exact same number, or maybe more if your customer requests so). Secondly, it’s much easier to serve! There is no need for someone to cut and serve. Everyone just takes a cupcake each and help themselves! And thirdly, there can be more than one flavor for the cupcakes as opposed to a standard cake where the flavor is limited to just one.

The only downside to birthday cupcakes, which I think why most people would still prefer standard cakes is the cake cutting part. Cutting a cake is more symbolic. With cupcakes, there is no cake cutting as it is not necessary when the cakes are already in separate casings!

Nevertheless, cupcakes are a great choice if you are looking for something out the norm for birthday cakes.

Here is one such birthday cupcakes design I created for my mom’s birthday. I designed the cupcakes to match my floral theme, of course!

It was a slight variation from the norm as we normally have large cakes for birthdays. So when I presented the cupcakes, they immediately became a huge hit at the birthday party. The kids were particularly excited with the cupcakes, choosing over their favorite letters and designs on the cupcakes. 

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How to Make Pretty Floral Birthday Cupcakes

Here is what I used to come up with this design:

• Cupcakes – I made a total of 34 cupcakes. I counted that I would need 18 just for the phrase “Happy Birthday Mummy” as the letters in the phrase were embossed on one cupcake each. The rest of the cupcakes were decorated to match the floral theme I decided on. Since there were a lot of cupcakes, I baked them in 2 different flavors – I used my vanilla pound cake recipe for cupcakes with the phrase “Happy Birthday Mummy”, the rest were baked using my chocolate cupcake recipe.
• Buttercream and fondant – I covered each cupcake with a thin layer of buttercream and covered them with fondant circles cut out using my scalloped round cutter. I also used buttercream to pipe the letters, white flowers, green scrolls, the heart shapes, and leaves.
• Gumpaste – I used gum paste to make the pink and yellow roses. These were not wired as I was placing them directly on the cupcakes and did not want to risk anyone biting into any wire.

Here is how I assembled the cupcakes

• I used a large gold foil-covered cake board to hold the cupcakes. The board was about 18 inches in diameter and was large enough to hold all the 34 cupcakes.
• The cupcakes themselves were baked in matching gold-covered foil liners.
• Once the cupcakes were baked and cooled, I started with the fondant circle cutouts to cover the cupcakes. I made 18 first for the letters. Embossed each circle with the letters using one of Wilton’s embossers. I then placed the cutouts on the vanilla cupcakes. Using some maroon buttercream, I piped the letters guided by the embossed letter marks. For the balance 16 chocolate cupcakes, I repeated the process – I cut out 16 circles, and placed them on the buttercream covered cupcakes. This time, however, I did not decorate the circles first. The intention is to decorate them after placing them on the cupcakes.  
• Once all the cupcakes were covered with the fondant circles, I went on with the decorating. The first 4 were decorated with the following design:

• I used white, red, and green buttercream to pipe white flowers with tiny red centers and green scrolls.
• Another 4 cupcakes were piped with a heart outline in maroon below:

• The final 8 cupcakes were decorated with gum paste roses. 4 cupcakes had one full bloom pink rose each, while the balance 4 were decorated with rose buds in pink and yellow. Each cupcake had 3 rose buds on them.

• Once all the decoration was completed, I arranged the birthday cupcakes on a large board in the order as shown in the full image above.

And that’s it. The birthday cupcakes were done.

Hope you enjoyed this cupcake idea!

Happy decorating 🙂