Sunflower Cupcakes

Here are some fun sunflower cupcakes. They are very easy to make too. I'll walk you through a step by step tutorial on how to make these. Make sure to read through my tips at the end of the post before making them. Here's how...

Ingredients:
24 baked cupcakes
24 oreo cookies
24 red m&m's
3 c. white frosting
2 T. chocolate frosting
Yellow and green food coloring
1 small, 1 medium ziploc bag (or pastry bag if you have one)
A little tape

Color about a cup of the frosting green. Color the remaining frosting yellow. Spread a small amount of green frosting on top of the cupcakes. If you use too much the cookie will slide off the cupcake. You only need enough to lightly frost it. About 1 T. per cupcake. Place 1 oreo cookie on top of the green frosting. Right in the middle.

Now the yellow frosting is a little tricky. Take the medium ziploc bag and reinforce one of the bottom corners with 2 pieces of scotch tape. I usually use a quart size bag. Fill the bag with yellow frosting. Use a pair of scissors to cut a medium sized V shape out of the corner of the bag. The opening should be the size of a pea. If using a pastry bag you will need a leaf tip.

Take a cupcake and place the tip of your bag right nest to the cookie. Give it a good squeeze. DO NOT pull your hand away as you squeeze the bag or your petals will turn out too long and flimsy. After you get the size petal you want stop squeezing the bag and pull away. Repeat around the entire cookie. Do all 24 cupcakes.

Now for the lady bug. You'll do the same thing you did for the yellow frosting bag. reinforce the corner with 2 pieces of scotch tape. Put the small amount of chocolate frosting in the bag. Snip a very small straight line across the tip of the bag. Frost a straight line down the middle of the red m&m. At one the ends make a small head across the tip of the candy. Add spots using the same technique as the flower. Squeeze, stop, then pull away.

Last, put a small spot of frosting on the bottom of your lady bug and place on top of your chocolate cookie. Finished!

Now here are a few tips to make sure they turn out the way you want them to.

Tip#1. Use a thick frosting. When I use store bought frosting I find that it isn't thick enough and the flower petals melt off the cookie and turn into a goopy mess.

Tip#2. The easiest way to fill a bag with frosting is this. Grab the taped corner of the bag with your hand. Open the bag with your other hand and wrap it around the hand holding the corner. Open hand. Fill your hand that's covered with plastic with the frosting. Using that same hand grab the frosting and use the other hand to bring the bag back around to seal it. Confusing I know, but it's the least messy way of filling a bag :)

*I got this idea from Hello Cupcake