In the wide world of buttercream flowers it can be tempting to jump right into the complicated stuff, but don’t overlook buttercream drop flowers!
If you’re wondering what the heck I’m talking about, drop flowers are simply icing flowers piped with a special kind of piping tip. The drop flower tip has a star or flower shaped opening with a small metal rod in the middle. That little rod keeps each section, or petal separate rather than piping out one large blob.
Drop flower tips come in different shapes and sizes, but to be honest I don’t think they look that different once you actually pipe with them. I have several larger and smaller Wilton brand tips, which you can buy online or at the craft store.
I think drop flowers tips are a bit more useful for making royal icing flowers, which you would pipe out and let dry, but they’re still really fun to use for buttercream! There are just a few things you need to know before trying out buttercream drop flowers:
What type of buttercream should you use for drop flowers?
You definitely need to use a stiffer consistency buttercream for drop flowers. I used Swiss meringue buttercream for the cake in this post, but you could also use Italian meringue buttercream or American Buttercream.
If you are using a meringue buttercream, make sure to keep the frosting on the cooler side so that it remains stiff as you pipe. If the buttercream is not stiff enough, the flowers will lose their definition and end up just looking that same as piping with a star tip.
How do you use a drop flower tip?
Hold your piping bag straight up and down, with the tip touching the surface of your cake. As you begin to pipe, twist the tip clockwise. Stop squeezing and pull straight up to complete the flower.
The twisting movement is really important for getting the petals to turn out! If you don’t twist enough, your flowers will end up looking like stars. Still pretty, but not what we’re aiming for.
The basic drop flower is just a flat, single layer flower. But I do also like to use the drop flower tip to make a taller, ruffled flower. Begin piping by touch the tip to your cake and twisting, but this time twist back and forth as you slowly squeeze and pull up. These don’t look so much like flowers, but I think it’s a fun addition to buttercream flower arrangements.
Arranging the buttercream flowers on your cake
Before you begin piping on your cake, I would recommend chilling the cake to get your base layer of frosting firm. This isn’t totally necessary, but it’s a good idea in case you bump into your cake while piping.
The flowers themselves can be arranged or piped any way you like. I piped clusters of flowers on the top of this cake, but you could easily pipe them on the sides of the cake or in a more neat and tidy pattern.
To get a more organic look like I did, use several different colors and pipe the flowers in clusters around the top of the cake. Don’t be afraid to overlap flowers or use a lot of one color to build up height.
You can also use an overlapping method to pipe the flowers slightly cascading over the edges of your cake.
Finishing touches
Buttercream drop flowers are meant to be simple and easy, but you can take it a step further by adding centers to your flowers. I used a small star tip round tip to pipe centers for some of my larger flowers. Any small round or star tip would look nice, or you could even use sprinkles!
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