Sunflower Cupcakes
Looking for a bright, fun, fall-themed cupcake? Sunflower cupcakes are easy to make and decorate, and gorgeous to display!
Servings: 24 cupcakes
Calories: 482kcal
Equipment
- 2 Cupcake pans (24 cups total)
- large cookie scoop (optional, but makes transferring batter much easier)
- 1 small piping bag + leaf tip (Ateco 352 or a teardrop tip, for sunflower petals)
- 1 small piping bag + star tip (for sunflower centers)
- 1 large piping bag + star tip (optional - I frosted some cupcakes with swirls for variety and hand-cramp relief!)
Ingredients
Sunflower cupcakes
- 2 ½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1 T pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup buttermilk
Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting
- 8 ounces cream cheese (one package; softened)
- 1 cup butter (two sticks, softened)
- 6 cups powdered sugar
- 1-2 Tablespoons milk
- 1 Tablespoon clear vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon salt (if using unsalted butter)
- 5 large drops yellow gel food coloring
- ¼ cup black cocoa powder (for the cupcake centers – you can also use black gel food color but cocoa powder tastes better!)
- Sprinkles of your choice (Optional; I used a black/gold mix from Fancy Sprinkles very similar to this one)
Instructions
Sunflower cupcakes
- Preheat your oven to 325℉, and prepare cupcake pans with cupcake liners.
- Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir to combine and set aside.
- In a medium or stand mixer bowl, cream together butter and sugar until lightened. Mix in eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk. (The mixture will look clumpy and strange at this stage. This is normal!)
- Add flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined – don’t overmix! The batter will be fairly thick.
- Fill each cupcake liner ⅔ full (using a large cookie scoop to transfer the batter into the cupcake liners makes this a quick and easy process).
- Bake for 16-23 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before frosting. (This is a great time to make your frosting!)
Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting
- Beat together softened cream cheese and butter; slowly add in powdered sugar alternating with milk until frosting reaches desired consistency. I recommend making it fairly thick for this recipe, so that the frosting petals will hold their shape. Add vanilla and salt if needed and beat until well combined. Mix in food coloring until frosting is a deep sunflower yellow.
On to the fun part - Decorating!
- (I recommend watching the video for reference here; it's less than a minute long. Some decorating techniques are easier to watch than read!)
- Transfer yellow frosting to a piping bag fitted with a leaf or teardrop tip, and pipe petals around the outermost cupcake edges. Repeat until about halfway into the cupcake center; 2-3 rows.
- Pipe dark frosting in small stars to make the sunflower centers; about a quarter-sized circle. (I picked up my yellow frosting again at this point and added one more circle of petals to rim the center – optional, but I thought they looked a little more realistic with a few more petals near the center.)
- Uncramp your hand if needed, and repeat!
- (I also used my large piping bag & large star tip and piped a few of the cupcakes - when I couldn't work the cramps out of my hand and running out of decorating time. Large swirls made a fun way to break up the cupcake designs!)
- And you’re done! Step back and admire your gorgeous cupcakes! 😉
Video
Notes
(Please note nutrition information is an estimate, and may not be exactly accurate. Counts will be lower in all fields if the full batch of frosting isn't used.)
Nutrition
Serving: 1cupcake | Calories: 482kcal | Carbohydrates: 65g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 22g