Cake Decorating How-To: Buttercream Christmas Wreaths

After spending a lot of time during the last few days decorating for Christmas, I was in the mood to do some holiday baking.  Tonight, I opted for cupcakes decorated in 2 wreath styles!  The first was a holly wreath and the second a fir wreath.  To make these, you'll need:

Baked cupcakes (duh)
Buttercream Icing (white, red, green)
2 piping bags with couplers
Small leaf tip
Small round tip
Small grass tip
Round red sprinkles (optional)

Once your cupcakes cool, ice the tops with a thin layer of white icing.

Mix and fill a piping bag with green icing (see this blog about coloring icing).  Using a leaf tip, pipe small leaves around the outside edge of your cupcake.

Then make a second layer of leaves inside the first...

...and then a third.

Mix and fill a piping bag with red icing.  Using a small round tip, pipe a bow on the top of your wreath.  Then pipe little red balls (in threes!) throughout the green.  You can also use round red sprinkles (what I did here). 

Now for the second wreath:

Change the tip on your bag of green icing to a small grass tip.  You'll need to practice with this tip, as it takes a few squeezes to get the hang of the "grassy look".

To use this tip, hold your bag just above the surface of your cupcake/practice area and squeeze.  Pull your hand away from the surface quickly.  As you do this, stop squeezing the bag, so you form "longer" grass.  If you don't move away "quickly enough", your grass will look like a lego (blob at the bottom with tiny dots on top).  Always practice before you "mess up" a cupcake - you'll get it!

Once you've mastered the tip, pipe a circle around the edge of your cupcake.  Then pipe one more layer of "grass" inside the first.  Then fill in gaps or funny looking spots in your wreath so it's nice and full!

Then layer in some holly - replace the grass tip with your leaf tip and pipe a few groups of small leaves around the wreath.

Then, using your red icing bag and the small round tip, pipe a red bow on the top and little berries in the center of each leaf group.  You can also use round red sprinkles for the berries (what I did here).

Happy Cupcaking!