Other materials:

• 5 eggs
• 500 gram soft unsalted butter
• 200 ml water
• Several bowls

Preheat the oven to 180°C (convection oven 160°C). Prepare 200 gram of FunCakes mix for Buttercream and 500 gram of FunCakes mix for Cupcakes as indicated on the package or in the basic recipes for buttercream and cupcakes. Place the baking cups in the muffin pan and fill them for two third with batter. Bake the cakes for 18-20 minutes and let them cool down on a cooling grid afterwards.

Divide the buttercream into several bowls and colour it with the different colours of green gels. Prepare decorating bags with adaptors and fill them with the buttercreams. By using adaptors you are able to easily change the decorating bags of the different colours of buttercream. In one decorating bag, paint a line on the inside of the bag with the Claret colouring before you fill it with light green buttercream. To make succulents from this, do as follows: pipe with #12 a small pyramid on the cupcake. Change the decorating tip with #104. Make sure the red line is equal to the small side of the decorating tip. Now pipe some sort of ‘scarf’ around the tip of the pyramid. Then make three leafs around it, continue with 5 leaves around that layer and then another layer of 7 leaves.

Use decorating tip #352 to make a different kind of succulent: pipe along the edges of the cupcake small leaves in the colour green of your choice. When you’ve finished your first circle, repeat this a bit more to the inside. Continue until the whole cupcake is covered with leaves. Then make edible paint by mixing a bit of rejuvenator with sparkle dust. Carefully paint the tips of the succulents gold with the brush. For the cactus, use decorating tip #12 and #18 and work as follows: pipe with #12 a reasonable amount of green buttercream on the cupcakes. Change decorating tips and continue with #18 in the same colour. Make stripes from the bottom to the top with the buttercream. Roll out some pink fondant, cut out small blossoms out of it and attach these to the cactus. Finally, cover the rest of the cupcakes by varying with the different decorating tips and colour of buttercream.

Made possible by: