Cupcake Frosting Ideas – Floral Frosting Cupcakes

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If you’re looking for beautiful and easy cupcake frosting ideas, look no further! These Floral frosting cupcakes are as gorgeous as they are delicious, and you don’t have to be a piping pro to make them look stunning.

These floral frosting cupcakes are the perfect way to welcome spring! We had a grand ol’ time experimenting with frosting tips and buttercream to turn cupcakes into flowers!

Who doesn’t love cupcakes and flowers?!! These are the perfect example of a little Sugar AND Charm.

You don’t have to be a professional baker or cake decorator extraordinaire to make these either, which is always a huge plus!

The multi-colored hydrangeas turned out to be my favorite, and they are ridiculously easy to create… as they might even make you laugh because they’re so easy. You will be so proud of yourself.

Check out our short video to see how to frost the hydrangea cupcakes! We also made carnations and mums.

One thing to note, you have to use homemade buttercream frosting to make these.

It’s the only one that’s thick enough to hold the floral design. SO, don’t try it with store-bought frosting! Enjoy!

Overhead shot of two frosted floral cupcakes - vanilla frosting

How To Make Floral Frosting Cupcakes – Step By Step

First, make a batch of your favorite cupcakes. We love our classic vanilla cupcake recipe or our lemon cupcakes.

  • Whip the butter and shortening until they’re smooth.
  • Add in the sugar, 2 cups at a time, and continue to beat.
  • Add the milk in between, alternating with the sugar.
  • Beat on high until the frosting is fluffy. You want it to be thick but not too thick that it won’t pipe smoothly.
  • Divide the frosting up into 4 bowls to add food coloring to each of them. We used a tiny bit of gel food coloring to get the desired colors we wanted.

Hydrangeas

  • For the hydrangeas, put the Wilton 1M tip into a piping bag. It’s a large star tip.
  • Then add 3 colors of frosting on each side of the bag. We did light pink, creamy orange, and white. This will give it more depth and make the flower multi-colored.
  • Hold the tip down to the cupcake and pipe large petals all around until the top of the cupcake is covered.

Carnations

  • Add the buttercream frosting to the bag fitted with the Wilton 100 ruffled tip.
  • With the tip sideways (not face down), start in the center of the cupcake and pipe around… the frosting will stick up like a ribbon.

Mums

  • Add the Wilton 102 tip to a piping bag, and then add any color frosting you want!
  • For this, start on the outer edge and work your way in.
  • The piping tool should be facing the cupcake, and you can go up and down while spinning the cupcake.
  • Work your way into the center, overlapping the petals.
top down shot of 3 cupcakes and piping bag - cream cheese frosting

Homemade Frosting VS Store Bought Frosting

While store-bought frosting has its uses, for these cupcake frosting ideas – you should use homemade buttercream frosting.

The reason is homemade buttercream frosting is thicker and holds the floral structures. So avoid storebought frosting!

above shot of 6 frosted cupcake ideas cream cheese frosting

Decorating A Cupcake – Made Easy And Fun!

Cake decorating can feel daunting, we’ve all seen cake decorating disasters on cooking shows, but I promise you this is so straightforward, you’ll be amazed!

Check out the link at the top of the page to see just how easy and fun this is.

close up shot of floral cupcake - vanilla frosting

Frosting Bag

Frosting bags, food coloring (we used light orange, pink, yellow, and white) and frosting tips.

We used Wilton 1M for the hydrangeas, Wilton 102 for the mums, and Wilton 100 ruffled tip for the carnations. Buttercream recipe is below!

above shot of piping bag and 2 cupcakes - vanilla buttercream frosting

Tips For Cupcake Frosting Ideas

  • Make sure you use the right powdered sugar. 10x is the finest and what you want to use in any type of frosting.
  • Ensure you sift your powdered sugar thoroughly before adding it to your buttercream.
  • Check your mixture. It should be thick but not too thick as it won’t pipe.
  • Adding additional liquid to your buttercreams, such as flavorings or purees, can make it far too liquidy to come together nicely. 
close up of 1 pink cupcake for a frosting idea - cream cheese frosting

When to Serve Floral Cupcakes

These are great to make year-round! We love them for any of these occasions:

Check Out These Other Frosted Cupcake Ideas

Lemon Cupcakes With Buttercream Meringue Frosting

Chocolate Toffee Cupcakes With Toffee Buttercream Frosting

Chocolate Cupcakes With Dragon Fruit Frosting

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Confetti Cupcake Recipe

Easy Snowman Cupcakes

Black Velvet Cupcakes

If you have tried these frosted cupcake ideas or any other recipe on my blog, then please rate it and let me know how it turned out in the comments below!

You can also FOLLOW ME on FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, and PINTEREST to see more delicious food and party ideas!

Floral Frosting Cupcakes

Make your cupcakes extra special!
3.37 from 19 votes
Print Pin Rate
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Prep Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour
Servings: 24 servings
Calories: 300kcal
Author: Eden

Ingredients

  • 2 sticks butter, room temperature
  • 1 cup vegetable shortening, room temperature
  • 8 cups sifted powdered sugar
  • 6 tbsp whole milk

Instructions

  • Whip the butter and shortening until they’re smooth.
  • Add in the sugar, 2 cups at a time and continue to beat.
  • Add in the milk in between alternating with the sugar.
  • Beat on high until the frosting is fluffy. You want it to be thick, but not too thick where it won’t pipe smoothly.
  • Divide the frosting up into 4 bowls to add food coloring to each of them. We used a tiny bit of gel food coloring to get the desired colors we wanted.

Hydrangeas

  • For the hydrangeas, put the Wilton 1M tip into a piping bag. It’s a large star tip.
  • Then add in 3 colors of frosting on each side of the bag. We did light pink, creamy orange and white. This will give it more depth and make the flower multi-colored.
  • Hold the tip down to the cupcake and pipe large petals all around until the top of the cupcake is covered.

Carnations

  • Add the buttercream frosting to the bag fitted with the Wilton 100 ruffled tip.
  • With the tip sideways (not face down), start in the center of the cupcake and pipe around… the frosting will be sticking up like a ribbon.

Mums

  • Add the Wilton 102 tip to a piping bag and then add any color frosting you want!
  • For this, start on the outer edge and work your way in. The piping tool should be facing the cupcake and you can go up and down, while spinning the cupcake.
  • Work your way into the center, overlapping the petals.

Video

Nutrition

Serving: 0g | Calories: 300kcal | Carbohydrates: 40g | Protein: 0g | Fat: 16g | Saturated Fat: 7g | Cholesterol: 20mg | Sodium: 69mg | Potassium: 7mg | Sugar: 39g | Vitamin A: 240IU | Calcium: 6mg | Iron: 0mg
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24 thoughts on “Cupcake Frosting Ideas – Floral Frosting Cupcakes”

  1. I love these and I am going to make them for my daughter’s birthday party! How far ahead of time can I frost these? If I frost them and put them in the refrigerator, would it be fine to do it a couple.days ahead?

    Reply
  2. I know this post is not current but quick question….are these cupcakes mini or regular size. They are beautiful! Thank you for sharing this. I plan on making these for my daughters baby shower. If regular size, do you think they can be made as smaller cupcakes??

    Reply
    • Hi Henry! We didn’t add that because it varies so much for each of us, but it does make a good amount of frosting so you can get about 16 and up. You can always make more though too if you feel like you’ll need it!

      Reply
  3. I’m anxious to try frosting cupcakes for my grand children, birthday school party but can you tell me what a stick of butter is in cups as vegetable shortening one cup in recipe. ( copha is our shortening here in Aust.)
    Thank you
    Glennis

    Reply
  4. This is amazing! I would love to invite you to my link party: The Beautifully Creative Inspired. The party launches every Fridays at 9AM eastern time on 3 BLOGS! It runs until Wednesday. 😀 Hope you can party with us!

    Reply
  5. Eden,
    You are right about store bought plastic tasting frosting. Yuck. Wish you had used swiss meringue buttercream. I will try it and I bet it works. Thanks for the tips, pardon the pun…

    Reply
  6. the hydrangea look is the most often requested when i do wedding cupcakes. love it! so pretty with purple or green too!! these are all beautiful!

    Reply

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