How to Make Decorated Royal Cupcakes

Start by adding your choice of buttercream, or frosting, to the top of the baked (and cooled) cupcakes - you want this to be quite a stiff consistency.

Use a small palette knife to shape it into a dome on top of the cupcakes making sure to stop just short of the edges of the cupcake case.

Roll out white fondant icing to approximately 3mm thick and cut out one circle for each cupcake using an 8cm round cutter.

Drape the icing circle over the buttercream and smooth it into a dome using your hands.

Repeat for all of your cupcakes.

To make the Union flag take some red ready-to-roll icing, and roll this into an oblong approximately 2-3mm thick,  use a ruler and pizza wheel to cut out strips 1cm wide. Use these strips to form a cross on each cupcake, attaching in position with a little water.

Trim off excess icing from the sides of the cupcakes with scissors.

Top Tip: It’s a good idea to have an image of the Union flag in front of you when moving onto the next part of the decoration (especially if you’re a stickler for accuracy!).

To complete the next part of the design you will need Sapphire Blue ready-to-roll icing.

Roll the icing to 3mm thick and use a pizza wheel to cut out small triangles. Due to the dome shape of the top of the cupcake, each little blue triangle needs to be cut to size by eye and positioned on the cupcake - make sure to leave a gap for the thin red stripes.

The finished design!

Take some white ready-to-roll icing and roll it out to 4mm thick. Use a 6cm cutter to cut out a circle for each cupcake, then use the smallest size of bunting cutter to cut triangles from white, red and blue icing. Arrange these on the discs and leave all the icing pieces to dry out whilst you decorate the cupcakes.

Colour your buttercream with red and blue gel food colours.

Put each colour into a piping bag fitted with an open star nozzle (Wilton no.32). Pipe alternate colours on top of each cupcake to cover.

Use blue and red edible pens to draw Union flags onto the white bunting.

Secure the bunting flags in place on the icing discs with a little water.

Sit the icing discs on top of the piped cupcakes.

Add a very thin sausage of white icing for the string of the bunting and position this on the discs to complete the design.

Pipe a swirl of buttercream on top of each cupcake using a Wilton 2D nozzle – hold the piping bag at a 90° angle directly over the cupcake. Starting in the centre of the cupcake pipe outwards in a circular motion until you reach the edge and pull away.

Sprinkle red and blue sugar crystals on the top of the iced cupcakes.