I’m sure I don’t need to point this out, but it’s Mother’s Day! First and foremost I want to wish a very Happy Mother’s Day to everyone who is reading this :) I always love the feel of Mother’s Day because spring is in the air (which I'm told is a nice feeling if you live in places that have seasons) and I like that people finally stop to acknowledge how hard of a job being a mother is - which we should do much more often than one day a year, because their work never stops. To illustrate this point, I want to show you something my own mother shared on her social media recently.
Of course, my first thought was, “but do the men have to do that before Father’s Day? NO.” And I was kind of perturbed that it’s 2020 and women are still supposed to be the primary caretakers of the children AND the housekeeping, while most of them hold a full time job to boot, but I digress. This just goes to show how freaking awesome mothers really are!
Mother’s Day inspired me to make today’s creation since I can’t be with my own mother to celebrate nor can you really get a decent bouquet of flowers delivered these days. #COVIDwoes I decided to make a bouquet for her (and my sister, and all my other family and friends who are mothers and should be celebrated today!) as my sweet treat this week. And instead of piping every single leaf individually like I normally do for buttercream flowers, I used a baking hack called Russian Piping Tips.
Have you heard of these yet? These little magic wonders are a HUGE time saver if you’re tasked with piping a whole bunch of flowers in a short amount of time. And there are so many of them to choose from! Too many, in fact, for me to write about all of them, so I picked three of the flowery ones for this week’s project and will showcase them today. I’m sure there will be a Russian Piping Tips Part II and maybe even Part III since I got a whole gift set for Christmas this past year. (Click here to see the one I got - it has 88 pieces. This thing is a beast, and I will certainly share more about this set as I teach myself to use each piece.)
For starters, here is a Russian tip that pipes a wavy flower petal with discernible stamens on the inside.
I thought they were cute, but wanted to amp them up a bit so I added pearl sprinkles to the inside of them before the final photo shoot. Perfect for Mother’s day!
Next I used a tip that pipes flowers that kind of look like little rosebuds. (Pro-tip: I actually didn't like the way they looked the first time around, but the beauty of piping frosting is that you can scrape it off and redo it as many times as you want!)
And lastly, I want to share this technique that I used to make two tone flowers along with another video of the piping tip in use with the two tone frosting.
Originally I hadn’t planned to pipe leaves on the muffins (I made a cherry quick bread, by the way, and baked them as individual muffins for today’s blog) because I used green parchment wraps to simulate leaves, but the blue and yellow frosting started blending together and created a really pretty green (and there was plenty of it!), so I mixed them up and piped a few leaves on them as well.
I hope you enjoyed these piping tips #PunIntended Remember, I am always happy to help out with whatever piping techniques questions you might have. Since my decorating classes have been put on hold for now post your questions here or write me an email and I will be happy to share my knowledge with you :)
Happy eating, y’all. And Happy Mother’s Day!
Here are some bonus pix of my momma and me. And I swear, I will call her as soon as this is posted! Enjoy!
1) Top Left - Our Christmas tradition: egg nog in champagne flutes.
2) Top Middle - One of my favorite photos of her - a touch of glamour and always a smile!
3) Top Right - We both dressed up as house pets for Halloween this past year!
4) Bottom Left - I get all my Irishness from her, and we used to celebrate it every year at the St. Patrick's Day parade in New Orleans.
5) Bottom Right - The whole family: my parents, my sister & bro-in-law, and their amazing/incredible/super cute/crazy smart kids. (And me, as a cake.)
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