Flower Pot Cupcakes - now with Sunflowers!

Because the first batch just wasn't enough!

Well, that, and the fact that some of my work friends saw the last set of these I did - possibly because I constantly yak about my baking to everyone who will listen, or who is forced into listening because they happen to sit near me.

In any case, a few of my coworkers asked if I could make them some flower pot cupcakes, and I was happy to oblige! I put together a set of four just like the ones in this post for my good pal Linda, and when Nate, who sits near Linda heard about it, well, he just had to have some, too.

His order wasn't quite as simple though. Not only did he want a full dozen cupcakes, he wanted sunflowers on some of them! Sunflowers! I tried to explain that sunflowers grow wild and free on great towering stalks, but he just had to have them in little pots.

A new challenge appears!

As you can see, I did find a way to create sunflowers, but the going was not as smooth as I'd hoped. You see, I'd spotted the perfect cookie cutter for the sunflower petals at Bulk Barn just the week before, so I had figured out in my head the perfect, easy way to make the sunflowers.

Except when I got to Bulk Barn, every last one of those cutters was gone. Every. Last. One.

Seriously.

Which meant, I had to custom cut all of it - every petal!

I started with a round cutter and used the pointed end of a spade-shaped cutter to turn the circle into a sunburst shape (if you have a sunburst shaped cutter, you get to save lots of time on this step!)

I used a smaller circle cutter to make an impression to outline the middle of the flower. Then I removed the cutter and arranged the petals around the center, and used the cutter again to trim away any petals that had stuck too close to the middle.

Next, I used a plastic baggie with the corner snipped off - I didn't feel a proper piping bad was necessary for this simple task - and piped a swirl of chocolate frosting into the flower center. I then went over the initial swirl with small dots of frosting until it was completely covered and, by George, looked an awful lot like a sunflower!

I made 4 sunflowers and it took the better part of an hour. I would love to make these again, so I think I'll be stalking the local Bulk Barn & cake supply shops' aisles pretty frequently until that petal cutter I want shows up.

Once all the flowers were done, it was time to apply them to the cupcakes.

For a how-to on making your cupcake flower pots, check out this post. When I was making a full dozen like this, I completed each step for all the cupcakes before moving on to the next step. Here you can see I'm partway through adding all the upper rims to the pots.

And voila! With a large flat leaf draped over the seam of the pot's upper lip and a sunflower nestled comfortably atop it, we have a successful sunflower-in-a-pot cupcake!

I have a feeling this may become a thing.

I'm on a real cupcake kick lately, and as I write this at 1:00 AM Sunday morning, I have a very experimental batch of cupcakes sitting in my good ol' cupcake caddy on the kitchen island. Tomorrow I'll be sharing them with my coworkers at my other job - oh, did I never mention I work a second job seasonally? No?

Well, I guess I'll talk more about that and the experimental cupcakes on Thursday.

Until then!

Bonus Monday Post: Flower Pot Cupcakes!

So, many of you have already seen the Flower Pot Cake I made last week. Well, after that, I had a bit of terracotta coloured fondant left. And some purple, and pink, and green.

What to do with all this leftover fondant?

Why, make mini versions of the same cake, of course!

Want to hear the easiest cake recipe ever? This is black midnight cake, straight out of that old Betty Crocker cookbook we inherited from my Great Grandma. The instructions, I swear to goodness, are pile all the ingredients into a bowl, and mix it. Seriously, that is about it.

Mix it for 30 seconds on low, then 3 minutes on high. Then you're ready to put it in your pans and bake up. Easiest. Thing. Ever. About as easy as using a mix! These cupcakes do come out a little crumbly, and they don't dome prettily like some recipes, but they taste so good and come together so easily that you won't even mind.

EDIT: I learned something cool! If you use pastry/cake flour instead of just all-purpose flour in these, they DO dome up prettily. Give it a try!

I portioned the batter into two cupcake pans, one with liners and the other greased, and baked each for 20 minutes.

Now, I didn't take pictures of what I'm about to describe, because I was simply too full of rage. So full of rage. The cupcakes that were in the greased pan didn't want to leave the pan. I swear, that can of generic brand pan spray is going right in the garbage.

Yes, I know greasing and flouring is always better than spraying. I know that, but also I am lazy. And greasing and flouring takes longer. So, yeah, had some trouble with those ones. In any case, we did get a few out of the pan intact enough for my decorating plan.

 I took the leftover terracotta fondant, rolled it out a little thicker than I wanted it, and used a large glass to get a rough circle. You see, I didn't have my 8,000 circular cookie/biscuit cutters with me because the decorating portion of this adventure took place at my Mom's place.

Hubby works nights, you see, so when I want to bake not-at-2-in-the-morning, I sometimes commandeer my mother's kitchen. Anyway, back to the fondant thing.

So cut the circle out of the fondant and then roll it out a little bigger and thinner until it's enough to cover the bottom and sides of your cupcake, like so:

The fondant's being held on by a thin, thin layer of chocolate buttercream. Just smooth it on with your clean, dry hands (this does take a bit of practise, on my first attempt the top edge tore!) then trim away the excess, and you'll have something that looks like this:

Now, spread a generous layer of chocolate frosting over the top, and cover that baby with Oreo crumbs.

Awwwwww yeeeeeeahhhhh. Just roll the frosted top about in your cookie crumb of choice until well coated. Hold the fondant sides very gently so as not to dent the smooth finish.

Once you have your cookie layer secured, take a small strip of fondant and use just a bit of water as glue to adhere it around the top of your cupcake, sticking fondant to fondant.

Remember the flowers we made for the cake? One fits perfectly in this little pot.

You can tell I was at my Mom's place, because that right there? That's actual daylight. I don't get that in my little basement apartment. It was such a gorgeous, bright day, I just had to take some shots out on the deck.

Oh, also, the cupcake looks really cute. I guess that's important, too.

...

*CRASH*

Oh no. Oh, jeez! Who dropped a flower pot?

Aw, and that was one of the flowers Mom made, too! Maaaaaaaaaaaan.

Of course, this is actually a purposeful disaster. I was unwilling to simply give up on some of the broken cupcakes that had stuck in the pan, so I trimmed up the bottom of one such cupcake to sit level, and turned it into a 'broken' flower pot cupcake. I covered the up-facing side with terracotta fondant, and then added cracks in it (see the chip out of the top?) and broken shards around.

I used the bit of cupcake I trimmed off and some frosting and Oreo crumbs for the spilled soil, and stuck the flower on with a bit more frosting, sliding halfway out of the broken pot, of course.

This guy was actually my favourite out of all the cupcakes my Mom and I decorated today.

Just look at that. Looks just like a busted flower pot. Not... not that I've broken a lot of them or anything. That was totally my little brother who broke the plant. Or, uh, the cat. Not me.

We also decorated a bunch of the cupcakes more traditionally, with swirls of frosting and royal icing flowers and such, but I really had to showcase the little flower pots. Who said leftovers can't be fun?

I found out today that decorating cupcakes is extra fun when you have someone to do it with. I wonder if you can tell which cupcakes I did and which my Mom helped with? (I'm not telling. Except, uh, the one covered in flower centers? Yeah, that wasn't me. Those are for the centers of flowers, Mom!!)

It was a super fun to have a little cupcake decorating party though... maybe someday soon I'll have a friend over to my place to help out with another project. Any volunteers?

In the meantime, if you want to try these yourself, here's the recipes:

Black Midnight Cake
From ancient Betty Crocker Cookbook, which I hopefully won't get sued for sharing?

2 1/4 cups flour
1 2/3 cups sugar
2/3 cups cocoa powder
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 cup water
3/4 cup shortening
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Pile all ingredients into large mixer bowl. Use hand mixer on low for 30 seconds, scraping down the sides with a spatula as you go, then mix 3 minutes on high speed, scraping down the sides occasionally.

Portion equally among 2 cupcake pans, makes a total of 24 cupcakes. Bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes.

That's it! Told you it was easy.

Almost as easy as the frosting:

Easy Chocolate Buttercream Frosting


1/2 cup butter (use salted, it's way too sweet if you use unsalted. Seriously.)
1/3 cup cocoa powder
2 cups icing sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
3 + tbsp milk

With an electric mixer, combine room-temperature butter and cocoa powder until smooth. Start slow so you don't coat your kitchen in cocoa. Slowly add the 2 cups of icing sugar. Add the vanilla and milk.

From here you have to add a bit more milk, a little at a time, until you get your desired consistency. This will vary a bit depending on humidity and such, so just test it after each addition of milk until it's spreadable but not runny. Then you're good to go!

***

Until next time!