Piping Roses
I’m by no means an expert, but I thought it might interesting to try out something new on the blog – piping techniques. First up – how to pipe roses onto cupcakes. This was always something I wanted to learn how to do and as it turns out, it’s a lot easier than you’d think, so you’ll be creating masterpieces in no time!
There are 2 techniques I like to use, each requires a different piping nozzle: Wilton 104 and Wilton 1M. I’m sure there are other brands you can use, as long as they look the same it should work.
Technique No. 1
Using the 1M nozzle, holding the piping bag upright, start at the centre of the cupcake. Pipe a star-like shape into the centre (this is natural shape of the nozzle) and slowly guide the nozzle round and round the cupcake until you reach the outer edge. Sometimes it can be difficult to finish off neatly (I clearly had issues) but as you come to the end, gradually stop squeezing the piping bag and round off the frosting gently. It’s as easy as that! (Sorry about the messy surface!)
Technique No. 2
This technique can be a little trickier, but the results are worth it – you get quite a realistic looking rose just using frosting. It’s best to use quite stiff frosting for this technique as it allows the rose to “stand up” more and for the “petals” to look more defined. For this technique, you need the 104 nozzle. To pipe, hold the piping bag at a 45 degree angle, with the wider side of the 104 at the bottom and the thinner side at the top.
Start at the centre and pipe a small circle, this forms the centre of the rose. Don’t worry if it’s not a perfect circle, it looks better when it’s a little misshapen, like a real rose. Start building up the “petals” by piping around the circle in an upside down U shape motion – start piping at the base of the cupcake, following an upside down U shape motion, lift up, then finish back at the base of the cupcake. The picture should explain this step much better! It’s usually a good idea to overlap the ends of each upside down U, as it makes it look more rose-like.
Continue doing this around the cupcake, gradually piping longer upside down U’s until you reach the edge of the cupcake. You’ll find that as you get closer to the outer edge, the “petals” become less upright and more curved, this is good! It helps achieve a real rose petal look. At this point, you can see why stiff frosting is needed as it holds the shape much better than a soft frosting which would really cause a misshapen mess!
So there you are, 2 different rose piping techniques to practice. Let me know how it goes!
thank you