7 Easy Buttercream Flower Designs for Sugar Cookies
It’s the season for flowers – buttercream flower cookies! This guide will show seven different designs and how to pipe them onto sugar cookies.
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Tools We Need
Piping Tips
Other Materials
Cookie Preparation
I’m currently developing my cookie recipe and will update this post when it is final!
In the meantime, please use your favorite recipe.
Buttercream Preparation
To decorate these cookies, I used American buttercream which crusts and is very stable.
For decorating 24 sugar cookies, I made 1 1/2 batches of American buttercream. Find my American buttercream recipe here!
To dye my buttercream, I used AmeriColor food gel dye. This is my favorite food gel dye to work with because a little drop goes a long way!
| Buttercream Color: | Food Gel | Flower |
| Black | 2 drops super black | Ruffled, Sunflower, Zinnia, Hibiscus |
| Pale Pink | 1 drop watermelon | Zinnia, Hibiscus, Rose, Ranunculus |
| Peach | 1 drop peach + 1 tiny drop apricot | Ranunculus, Rose |
| Yellow | 1 drop lemon yellow | Sunflower, Rose |
| Orange | 1 drop pumpkin + 1 tiny drop lemon yellow | Sunflower, Rose |
| Red/Peach | 1 tiny drop super red + 1 drop peach | Rose |
| Pale Sage | 1 drop leaf green + 2 drops avocado | Greenery |
Piping Bag Preparation
- Prepare one piping bag to fit the rosette tip.
- Add a #104 petal tip to a piping bag and fill with white buttercream.
- Prepare 3 other piping bags to fit couplers because we’ll be changing out tip #104 and #61. Fill these two piping bags with pink, peach buttercream.
- Then, for the third piping bag, use a spatula or knife to fill one half of the bag with yellow and one half with orange buttercream and remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect!
- Prepare a separate piping bag with the #4 tip which will be for the black buttercream details.
- Prepare another piping bag with the leaf tip and add the sage green buttercream.
Home Baking Business Tips
- If you are baking an order for a customer, always remember to bake a few extra cupcakes just in case mistakes happen! (Like dropping one on the floor….whoops).
- Because these are buttercream flowers, they don’t too much time to dry unlike royal icing.
- American buttercream is stable, but these are delicate. I would not recommend stacking.
- These are my favorite donut boxes for cookies when giving to customers!
WATCH THE VIDEO
Step-by-Step Decorating Guide
The Inspiration for Buttercream Flower Cookies
- Ruffled flower
- Ranunculus
- Sunflower
- Zinnia
- Hibiscus
- Rose
- Greenery
Tips for Buttercream Flower Cookies
- Skip cleaning the #104 tip in-between piping petals. The extra little bits of frosting are going to give the more “natural look”.
- The less hand pressure you use to squeeze the piping bag, the more delicate the petals.
- The more hand pressure you use to squeeze the piping bad, the thicker the petals.
Practice really makes perfect so please don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t come out right on the first try!
Ruffled Flower
- Begin with a #104 petal tip and point the tapered side up. Start in the center of the cookie, then pull the buttercream to the outer edge.
- While holding the cooki in your hand, pipe an up and down motion to make the ruffles.
- Continue to make the ruffled motion so that the flowers look pretty and rustic! Go all the way around the cookie so you have 7 petals in the first layer.
- As shown above in step 4, we are going to add a second layer of petals. Use the same up and down motion but make the petals smaller.
- When the second layer of petals are complete, place the cookie down on a flat surface.
- With the #4 piping tip, pipe small black dots in the center and then we have completed the flower!
Ranunculus
- Like the last design, start with the #104 petal tip and pipe a small base of buttercream.
- Keep the tips tapered side pointing up, then pipe three petals that overlap each other.
- Switch the #104 tip to another piping bag with the pale pink buttercream, then slowly pipe more petals around the center.
- Then, continue to pipe more and more petals as the ranunculus flower has many delicate petals! If you’d like, look at a reference picture to guide you!
- Finally, switch the #104 tip off the pink buttercream and do not clean it. Add this to the peach buttercream bag and screw onto the coupler. We are not going to clean the color out because this will create a gradient effect.
- Pipe the peach petals to the very edge of the cookie, then your buttercream flower is done!
Sunflower
- Firstly, we are going to now use the piping bag with the #61 curved tip. Start by piping small petals on the edge of the cookie, slowly pulling up and away to create long petals.
- Then, continue to pipe petals all around the outer edge.
- As shown above in Step 3, continue to pipe the buttercream petals to create a second row. You can start to see the orange color which gives the added effect of two tone flowers!
- Go ahead and add a third row of petals, making sure that they are smaller than the last row. A tip is to turn the cookie with your hand each time you pipe a new petal. Turning the cookie gives you more control and helps with practicing!
- Finally, pipe dots with the black buttercream which is one of the sunflowers real life characterisitics.
Zinnia
- Attach the #104 petal tip and keep the tapered side up. Then, start on the outside edge of the cookie and pipe quick up and down motions. Doing so will create pretty ruffles.
- Go all the way around the cookie but leave the center open so we can add details.
- Then, pipe a second layer of petals by using the quick up and down motion, starting just on top of the last layer. Make sure that these petals are slightly smaller so we can still see the first layer of petals.
- Switch to your #4 tip and add small dot into the center of the flower.
Hibiscus
- Switch to your #104 petal tip and have the tapered side pointed out. The hibiscus has five petals, so we want to space them evenly. Start in the center of the flower and with quick up and down motions, create the first petal.
- Then, continue to create the other petals while still turning the cookie with your hand.
- We will add the stamen by using the #4 tip and piping a curved line.
- As shown above in step 4, add some black dots to the stamen and then the cookie is done!
Roses
- Firstly, we are going to be using the leftover buttercream to pipe some mulicolored roses. Begin by laying a piece of plastic wrap on the table, then pipe the left over buttercream side by side onto the middle of the plastic wrap.
- As shown above in step 2, roll up the buttercream into a log and cut one end. Then, we will place this into the prepared piping big with the rosette tip.
- Point the piping tip in the center of the cookie and start the swirl for the center outwards.
- Finish the swirl at the outside edge of the cookie and then the cookie is complete! We want to start piping these roses from the center out, instead of outside to the center because it doesn’t have the nice rose shape.
Greenery
- Use the piping bag with the leaf tip and hold the cookie in your hand. Angle the tip slightly out and begin piping the leaf.
- Keep piping the leaves around the outside of the cookie, then we will add another layer.
- As shown above in step 3, we want to keep adding leaves. This is the same technique to add petals, just gently layer the leaves over one another.
- Then, finish the design by adding a few leaves to the center. You can change the style of greenery and make the cookies look as wild…or tame as you’d like!
The buttercream flower cookies are ready to show off! (Or eat!)
Overall, these designs are not overly complicated but it may take some practice if you are new to piping petals. That’s okay! Practice makes perfect, I believe in you! There so many designs that you can make, and the best part is that you can get creative and come up with your own designs!
If you recreate this, tag me on Instagram #alissasbakeshop – I’d love to see!
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