How to dress cupcakes in a hurry...

I recently was out of town and needed to put together some "pretty" cupcakes in a hurry.  Luckily I had a dozen Ribbon Rose Cake and Cupcake Toppers with me, so I knew just what to do...

Step 1:  I went to a local bakery and pleaded for 12 unfrosted cupcakes (they were very nice about it and gave me 13 for the price of 12 = ).
Step 2: I stopped at the local grocery store and bought two "cans" of ready made frosting.
Step 3: I stirred 1-1/2 cans of the frosting and scooped it into a plastic Ziploc baggie, zipped it up and clipped a small triangle from one of the corners of the bag.
Step 4: I swirled some frosting onto each cupcake
Step 5:  I added a little green food coloring to the remaining frosting and scooped it into another Ziploc baggie, zipped it up and this time I cut a very small corner of the bag off and then made a very small cut perpendicular to the first and piped what were supposed to be leaves onto the top of each cupcake.
Step 6:  I added the Ribbon Rose Cupcake Toppers and wah-lah...decorated cupcakes that were super easy and looked great!

The finished product...

How to dress a naked cake...

Decorating a cake can be overwhelming at times.  There are Soooooooooooo many ideas out there and the possibilities are only limited by our time and abilities. 

My goal as the CUPCAKE STYLIST is to help you stylishly dress your cakes and cupcakes with made-to-order toppers that you can apply to your own cakes and cupcakes, to make desserts that you can present to your friends, hear them ooh and aah, and then tell them you made it yourself!

This cake is one idea for using my fondant rosebuds available at http://www.cupcakestylist.etsy.com/

To make this cake:

1. Bake a 2 layer round cake.
2. Cover your cake board with fondant (optional).
3. Stack the cake layers and fill with your favorite filling and crumb coat with your favorite frosting.
4. Cover the crumb coated cake with white fondant.
5. Next color some fondant to match the rosebud leaves, and another color to match or complement the color of the rosebuds.
6. Roll some of the colored fondant and cut into strips, cutting the complementary color strips approximately 1-1/2” wide and the leaf color strips approximately 1” wide – cut the strips long enough to reach from the bottom of your cake to the top of the stacked layers, plus 1”.
7. Apply your fondant strips to your cake by brushing the back of the each strip with a little water, then “sticking” the strip to the cake.  (The number of strips applied will depend on the number of rosebuds you have.  In my example, I used 24 rosebuds)
8. Apply the rosebuds and leaves to the top of each stripe (again by brushing the base with just a little water)
9. Roll the remaining fondant into various size “balls” and apply around the base of your cake (please note: “balls” can be ordered also, to match your rosebuds).
10. Waa-lah!  You have a beautifully styled cake that will impress your friends and family!

Happy Styling!