Floral designs are a perennial favorite as a decoration for frosted cakes. It is important to mix the correct consistency of cream frosting to make the process easier. A soft, buttercream frosting, which hardens in the refrigerator, is the best choice for making frosting roses. Cake decorating is a skill that improves with experience. After a few practice sessions, you will be ready to make professional-looking roses to adorn the top of a cupcake or any special occasion cake.
Spread frosting on the top of the cupcake using the spatula, making sure it reaches to the edge. Use the flat side of the spatula to make the surface as smooth as possible.
Add several drops of food coloring to the buttercream frosting and mix in bowl to achieve the desired color for the rose.
Fill the icing bag with the colored frosting.
Put the broad-slotted icing tip on the end of the icing bag and tighten with the screw-top coupler to hold it in place.
Hold the cupcake in your left hand and the icing bag in your right. Squeeze a pyramid-shaped of mound of icing on the center of the cupcake. It should measure 1/2 inch in diameter and about 1 inch high.
Hold the icing tip at slightly less than 45-degree angle from the top of the pyramid. Align the top of the slot in the icing tip with the top of the pyramid.
Squeeze some frosting around the top of the pyramid, wrapping it in a swirl around the top to form the inner center "petal" of the rose.
Add a second swirl partially around this center swirl. Curve this second swirl upward in the center, forming an upside-down U shape.
Add a second and third "petal" in the same manner while you rotate the cupcake.
Squeeze five petals on the row immediately below the previous row of three petals.
Continue to rotate the cupcake as you add petals, one overlapping the previous one. Make each petal about 1 to 1 1/2 inches in length.
Repeat the formation of petals for additional rows, tilting the icing tip slightly further away from the center each time a rotation around the cupcake is completed. Make two or three more petals in each row than in the previous row.
Keep increasing the angle of the icing tip so that it is almost parallel to the top of the cupcake on your last row.
Add one last row of petals around the outer circumference of the last row at the edge of the cupcake, meeting the edge of the paper baking cup.
Mix a second batch of icing in a color slightly darker or slightly lighter than the first batch and make some of the petals within the rose from this second color to achieve a more realistic two-tone rose.