Mini M&M Cupcake Bouquet

Everyone thinks flowers are the answer to the perfect Mother’s Day Gift, but what good are they really? They’re pretty to look at for a few days if you’re lucky, then she’ll wind up throwing them in the trash.Why bother?

I’ve got an equally pretty option that will be much more appreciated: my Mini M&M Cupcake Bouquet. It’s colorful, vibrant, and best of all, delicious. Putting the time and effort into this surprisingly doable DIY shows a lot more love and appreciation for your ma than just running to the grocery store for boring flowers.

You can customize the cake flavor to whatever your mama prefers, and you can even stick to one favorite color of the M&M “petals,” if you like. You don’t need to be an artist to craft this masterpiece, but I guarantee your mom will be much more impressed by this than that drawing she hung on the fridge when you were five.

A Few Tips Before You Get Cooking:

1.  If you can, chill the cupcakes for a few hours before assembling the bouquet. This will make them sturdier.
2. You need to be really gentle attaching the cupcakes. They like to crumble.
3. If you choose a different frosting recipe, make sure it’s one that hardens up. Light frostings like whipped cream frosting won’t hold the M&Ms on well.
4. The easiest way to get the frosting into the holes that need covering on the bouquet when you’re finished is to put it into a bag and pipe it in.

Mini Cupcake Bouquet
By The Smart Cookie Cook

Ingredients:

• 12 mini cupcakes
• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 6 cups powdered sugar
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp. heavy cream
• Assorted colored M&Ms
• 1 small flower pot
• 1 small Styrofoam ball (it should fit into the pot)
• toothpicks

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat together cream and 2 cups sugar on medium speed until well-combined. Continue mixing in 2 cups at a time until all the sugar is incorporated. Beat in the vanilla and cream on high until fluffy, about 1 minute.
2. Frost each cupcake with a smooth, even layer of frosting. Place one yellow M&M in the center of each cupcake. Surround the yellow M&M with 6 M&Ms of one single color on each cupcake.
   
3. Set the Styrofoam ball into the flower pot. Stick two toothpicks into the top of the Styrofoam so that they are the width of a cupcake. Gently stick a cupcake onto the toothpicks so that it is secured. Continue building out from the center cupcake, attaching more cupcakes with at least 2 toothpicks each, until the Styrofoam ball is full.
   
4. Fill in exposed areas of the ball with extra frosting and attach green M&Ms to the frosting. You can add a bow to the pot if you like.
5. Keep bouquet in the fridge or a cool place.