Giant Cupcake Bouquet

 

This is a giant cupcake bouquet I made for a Teacher Appreciation Lunch at my kids’ school yesterday. I can’t tell you how many people walked into the room completely unaware that these flowers were not real flowers. Better yet, they’re edible!

I could kick myself for not taking any pictures of this creation with my DSLR camera. AND, for not taking pictures of the process to give you a proper tutorial. My sub-par iPhone picture and your imagination will have to do… because, well, that’s all I have.

I wasn’t planning on posting this, I was simply planning on experimenting to see if my brain child would actually work out. And it did, and I’m bummed I didn’t take the time to take pictures to show you every step of the way.

However, since I have been unable to find a proper tutorial for a giant cupcake bouquet online that doesn’t cost a fortune in hard to find fake flower foam pieces, let me try to walk you through the process without pictures, so you don’t have to try to recreate the wheel like I did! You know, if you have an occasion that requires you to serve a ridiculous amount of cupcakes in a pot that makes them look like a giant bouquet of flowers.

What You Need

Time (don’t try to throw this together in a day, it simply won’t work)

A Giant Pot

Multiple cans of spray foam (depending on your pot size)

Tooth picks

Cardboard or solid cork board

Something to weigh down the bottom of the pot with if needed (rocks, marbles, bags of powered sugar…)

Plastic Wrap

Tissue Paper

Fake flower pieces (like baby’s breath)

Cupcakes, frosting, food coloring, tips, bags and supplies to create your desired flower(s). I used three boxes of cake mix to create approximately 34 mini cupcake flowers and 38 regular sized cupcake flowers. However, I did have a fair amount of cupcakes left over.

Here’s How You Do It

I bought a large plastic pot from Wal-Mart. Really, you could make this in any size or shape of pot using this method. I believe this one has an 18inch diameter.

I also bought 2 cans of spray foam, the kind that fills cracks around pipes, windows and such (the bottles I used stated they filled gaps larger than 1 inch.). I wish I could show you the bottle, but again, I wasn’t planning on doing a tutorial originally.

I was able to locate a round piece of cork board that fit perfectly on the inner rim of the pot just a few inches down from the top, so I didn’t have to fill the entire pot with spray foam. I think you could use cardboard just as well. I used two bags of powdered sugar to weigh down the bottom of the pot. If I had thought ahead a little better I might have used rocks, or some other heavy object to keep the pot from tipping over when covered with heavy cupcakes. But hey, sometimes you have to make due with what you have!

I sprayed both cans of spray foam in a circular pattern to cover the base of my cork board situated a few inches from the top of my pot. Then I continued to go around and around until the foam resembled a giant cupcake. Then I let it sit overnight and by morning it had significantly expanded in size. Really, I’m sure I could have used a can or a can and a half for this project, though it might not have ended up quite as large and dome-like as it did.

When morning rolled around, a few hours past the suggested 8 hour set time, I went out to my garage to find a HUGE dome on top of my pot. Most of it had set, but part of it was still tacky. I touched that part with my fingers which was a huge mistake. It turns out, you really should wear gloves when working with the spray foam. When it gets off your skin, it simply does not come off. And it’s sticky. And yucky. And it tears off your skin even if it’s been drying for 9+ hours. So I left it in the garage and waited until early evening, approximately 24 hours after I first sprayed the foam.

Then I used a serrated knife (a junk one, NOT A GOOD ONE… I don’t think it’s ever coming clean) to carve the foam down to the size of dome shape I wanted.

Then I set it outside to let the newly exposed foam air out. I would give this process several hours as well, because you don’t want your cupcakes smelling or tasting like spray foam.

Just before I assembled the bouquet, I covered it in plastic wrap set in place by tooth picks. Then I set tissue paper over the plastic wrap and set it in place with tooth picks as well.

Finally, I arranged the cupcakes where I wanted them using round toothpicks that are sharp on both sides. I stuck one side into the foam then pressed the cupcake onto the other half of the toothpick that was sticking out.

At this point, you could either decorate them on the bouquet, or take them off one at a time, decorate it, and place it back on the toothpick. It’s totally up to you.

There are a bazillion tutorials for making cupcake roses or other flowers, icing and cupcakes recipes, etc. in the land of Pinterest and throughout the Blogosphere, so I’m not going to get into that on this post. I will tell you that I used a 1M tip for the roses and followed a simple rose technique to get the look of the big cupcakes. I’m not sure which tip I used for the little ones.

Once the bouquet was complete I filled in the gaps with some little white fake flower pieces, to resemble baby’s breath.

This is a picture I took just as I removed the last of the cupcakes, if this helps give you a little bit of a visual as to how it’s constructed.

Once disassembled, I am sure this dome and pot can be used over again many times. Or at least it appears that this will be the case. I’ll make sure to let you know if it turns out that I’m lying.

You can see alternate methods of making smaller cupcake bouquets by clicking on any of the pictures below to see some of my previous posts:

I hope this helps. If you’re looking to make a giant cupcake bouquet and have any additional questions, please let me know. Also, if you happen to make one and have a picture leave a link in the comment section. I would love to see how they turn out!