Everyone wants them for their weddings.  In Austin there are cupcake bakeries and cupcake food trailers and people line up to buy exotic flavor combos of cake and frosting.

I wanted cupcakes for the shower dessert so I could use two of my nine tiered servers and therefore tell myself and Banjo Man I need to keep them because they are oh-so useful and pretty.

I cannot decorate a cupcake.  I can’t do much with frosting, period.  So far, for forty-two years of baking, I’ve managed to fake it.  When I needed three dozen cupcakes for the bridal shower,  I asked my friend Harley Chick for advice.  She said, “Call the cake lady,” hauled out her three-inch thick mother-of-the-bride notebook and looked up the phone number.

To keep the cost down, I asked the cake lady for a simple white frosting.  Then I went to Michael’s and bought three bouquets of silk gerbera daisies for $2.99 (minus 40% off).  I clipped off the daisies, leaving a 2″ stem.  The cake lady put a simple leaf design of buttercream frosting on the cupcakes and I stuck my daisy “picks” into the tops before serving.

(Some of the guests put the flowers in their hair.  Festive!)

They were so cute I might do them again for the after-wedding party, though it might be fun to plop them into colored cupcake papers.