How to Make Buttercream Daisy Cupcakes

These buttercream daisy cupcakes are the second of my piped buttercream flower cupcakes series. The first is the buttercream sunflower cupcakes, the tutorial which you can find on my other page here.

I love making buttercream daisies. They are not only so pretty but easy to make too. I have, in fact, made the exact same daisies on cookies but instead of using buttercream, I used royal icing. You can read all about the daisies cookies here and watch the step by step video on that page too.

4 daisy cupcakes against a wood background

Daisy cupcakes in buttercream

Back to these buttercream daisy cupcakes.

I made these last weekend, along with my buttercream sunflower cupcakes. That was the first time actually, of me making the daisies and sunflower cupcakes. And much to my satisfaction, I totally loved the way the cupcakes turned out after decorating with the piped buttercream flowers that I decided I should create tutorials based on them straightaway.

So here I am, presenting to you my step by step picture tutorial and a video tutorial (at the end of this page), on how to make easy buttercream daisy cupcakes that you can pipe directly onto your cupcakes. No transferring and no freezing required.

How to Make Easy Buttercream Daisy Cupcakes

These were the main supplies I used to decorate the cupcakes:

Cupcakes – I used my egg less chocolate cake recipe for the cupcakes and baked them in medium-sized white muffin cups. The cupcakes turned out slightly domed in the centers and so I leveled the tops off with a serrated knife.
Buttercream – I used buttercream to not only pipe the daisies on the cupcakes, but also to crumb coat the cupcakes in green. For the daisies, since I wanted the flowers to be absolutely white, I modified my buttercream to replace the butter in the recipe with shortening. That way, I was able to achieve the perfect white hue in the buttercream. I should probably not call it buttercream anymore since there is no butter in it at all, but that’s only for the daisies, so I guess it's ok to still call it buttercream.
Wilton Golden yellow food color - – this was for the flower centers.
Wilton Juniper green food color – this was for the base coat of the cupcakes.
Petal tip number 104 , round tip number 5 and icing coupler - I used tip number 104 for the daisy petals and round tip number 5 for the yellow flower centers.
Disposable piping bags .
Palette knife – this was used to apply the green base icing for the cupcakes before piping the daisies on.

And this was how I decorated the buttercream daisy cupcakes

I started by baking my cupcakes and once baked, leveling off their domed tops.

The green background

Next, I applied a coat of juniper green-tinted buttercream. The idea is to fill the sides of the cupcake casings for a totally flat cupcake top. Also, since the daisy petals do not cover the entire top of the cupcakes, the green buttercream not only acts as a base coat for the cupcakes, it also complements the daisies well. So it is important that the cupcake is well covered with a smooth coat of green buttercream.

Once the buttercream base coat is done, the daisy can be piped on the cupcake. I made each daisy on the cupcakes with 16 petals and to make sure they were all equally distributed, I piped them in alternate order. I will explain that below with step by step images.

Piping the white petals

To begin with, hold the piping bag fitted with tip number 104 with the wider end of the tip pointing up and the narrow end pointing below.

Large petal tip in a piping bag filled with white icing

Place the tip with the wider end at the edge of the cupcake and gently squeeze your piping bag to let the icing out. Release the pressure on the piping bag and pull the piping tip towards the center of the cupcake. That should give you the first petal of your daisy.

A white buttercream petal on a green cupcake

For the second petal, turn the cupcake to 90 degrees, and pipe another petal in a similar manner to the first petal.

2 white petals on a green buttercream covered cupcake

Next, repeat the process on the left and right of the first to petals. That should give you 4 petals as follows.

3 white petals on a green buttercream covered cupcake

4 white petals on a green buttercream covered cupcake

Repeat the process for the next 4 petals, this time, piping each of the petals in the center between the earlier petals.

White petals on a green buttercream covered cupcake

Finally, finish off the petals piping by filling up one petal each in between all the petals that are already on the cupcake. And that should give you a full daisy with beautifully distributed petals.