Make Mother's Day Cake Toppers – Letter moulds & Rose buds

Nothing says Happy Mother’s Day better than flowers, so we've got some quick and easy flower toppers to decorate your cupcakes from Sally Riches of the brilliant Sally Jane Cake Design. In part one, Sally shows you how to make a Letter-studded topper and a beautiful rose bud with pearls. I chose the main colours Pink & Aqua as these are some of my favourite colours, but you can choose any you think will complement each other. A great website to look at to help you with colour charts is www.design-seeds.com. Equipment Sugarpaste, Flower paste, Rolling pin, CMC/Tylo powder, Plastic piping bag, Edible Glue Mum Letters & Striped Dome For the striped dome, you will need two colours of sugarpaste treated with CMC to make it strong. Roll out your main colour of sugarpaste and cut thin strips of your other colour. Add the strips on top of your other colour and carefully roll over using your rolling pin until the second colour is "set" into the first and is the same level. To create a dome, either leave this to dry on a specific dome dryer (www.purplecupcakes.co.uk) or a dome shape you have in the home, or you can just add the dome straight onto your buttercream topped cupcakes and smooth with the palm for your hand. You could use any lettering, but a Martha Stewart silicone mould is my favourite for pretty/feminine projects. Add the flower paste into the letters and scrape off any excess with a sharp knife. I tend to put the mould in the freezer for 10 minutes (it is much more straightforward when the name means you don’t need two of the same letters!) and then you are able to push the letter straight out. Be careful handling the letters when they are slightly frozen, as you can easily leave finger marks. Allow the letters to dry and firm up, then add to your cupcake with a small dab of edible glue. Rose Bud & Pearls For the pearls, roll a long thin sausage of sugarpaste, treated with CMC and cut into equal squares. Re-squash and shape into circles. Pop them all into a dish and add a little edible lustre. Swirl these around in the dish and watch as the pearls evenly take on the lustre. For the buds, I use a mix of flower paste and sugarpaste. I used a slightly darker shade for the inner bud than the outer to give the bud some depth. Roll a long sausage again and cut a piece, approx the width of your palm.  Put this inside a plastic wrap (the end of a piping bag works great) and squash along the length with your thumb. Then thin one of the edges with your forefinger (leaving the other end thicker). Remove from the plastic and roll along itself. Put the bud to one side. Once all dry, attach the the pearls and roses (using edible glue or royal icing) to the top of a blue dome. I pre-dried my dome on top of a dome shape but these can be easily shaped straight onto the cupcakes. Once you've put it all together, your rose bud and pearl cupcake topper should look a bit like this – Keep an eye out for more Mother's Day cupcake toppers from Sally Jane Cake Design in the next few days.