Making roses with buttercream frosting

Making roses out of buttercream frosting can seem difficult at first, but with a little practice you will be making beautiful roses in no time! In this tutorial I show you how make giant roses on top of cupcakes.

First, you will need the frosting. This can be any color you want it to be! Just make sure it is fairly firm. If the frosting is too soft, the petals will not stand and you'll end up with a droopy flower. Of course, if it is too stiff it won't come out of the pastry tip very well and you'll have jagged edges. We're looking for a nice, even consistency.

Next, you will need a pastry bag and a rose tip. Put about a cup of frosting in the pastry bag and squeeze it towards the tip. Go ahead and squeeze a little out to get the air completely out of the bag. Now, take your cupcake and make a nice mound of frosting in the center of it. This is the base of your flower.

Now you will need to make the center of the rose.  First, make sure you are holding your bag so that the large end of your rose tip is pointing down.

Take your bag and, with the large end nearly touching the top of the frosting base, make a circle of frosting right on top.  This is the beautiful center of a rose!

Now take your bag and, with the wide end down, make your first petal. Just squeeze a little frosting in one straight line right along the edge of your center. There will be three petals around the top, so place them accordingly.

Go ahead and put your second petal on!  Just make another line right next to the center, slightly overlapping the first petal you made.

Can you see where this is going? Make your third petal in the gap between the first two petals, slightly overlapping them. Your next set of petals will be just underneath the first set and so on until the base is covered. The number and size of the petals in each row will naturally get larger as you go further down the base.

Don't worry if you don't get it at first!  Just keep practicing and making those petals - it will just 'click' and all of a sudden you'll have a beautiful rose to show for it.  I bet I made a hundred 'roses' when I first started before I felt like I had the hang of it.  If you find that your frosting is getting too soft, squeeze it out and put new frosting in the bag.  This is why you should only put a little frosting in your bag at a time.  The heat from your hand starts to melt the frosting and you'll end up with a gooey mess fairly quickly.  Sure, you will be filling it more often, but you will have frosting that is the right consistency for making flowers.

Now you can add some embellishment if you wish.  I usually add some leaves at the edges (this can help cover up an ugly edge too) and sometimes I like to add colored sprinkles or non-pareils, like did here.

Good luck!  And enjoy!