DIY Chocolate Butterflies Cupcake Toppers

Today’s post is brought to you by Consie from Atop Serenity Hill! I’m super excited to have her posting today because she made the most AMAZING cupcake toppers I’ve ever seen, and she shows you exactly how to do it yourself! You guys are going to love this!


Hi everyone! I’m Consie and I blog over at Atop Serenity Hill about face and body painting, cake decorating, photography and anything else that comes along on my creative journey. I am excited to be here today (thanks, Jessi!) to share one of my cupcake toppers with you!

My neighbor decided to have an end of summer cocktail party and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to make a special dessert for the occasion. Here is what I used to make these cute cupcakes:

  • Dark chocolate boxed cake mix (because I am not a baker…I decorate!)
  • Mini cupcake pan and paper liners
  • Buttercream icing from scratch (recipe below)
  • Wilton candy melts in dark chocolate, orange & yellow
  • Decorator bags (to melt chocolate and pipe with)
  • Nonpareils
  • Wax paper
  • Toothpicks
  • #21 Wilton icing tip

After baking the cupcakes and setting them aside to cool completely, I started making the butterflies. I drew my wing shape on a piece of tracing paper (regular paper is fine), attached it to a clipboard and put a piece of wax paper over it. I now had a pattern for 9 butterflies at a time on a hard surface that fit easily into my fridge.

After following the directions on the Wilton packaging on how to correctly melt the chocolate, I was ready to go with all three bags of my melted chocolate. I cut a tiny piece out of the tip of the decorator bag. Start small…you can always cut more away.

Tip: depending on how fast you can work, you might want to do half a wing at a time as the chocolate is hardening as you go. Experiment first to figure out the best way for you. I messed up a few at first, but I ate all the evidence!

  1. Using the dark chocolate first, pipe out the shape of the wings.
  2. Add yellow chocolate to the top part of the wings, orange to the bottom. Be pretty generous so that it fills in the space. Tap on your surface to spread the chocolate out.
  3. Use a toothpick to lightly pull some of the dark chocolate into the colored sections to create a marbling effect. You can then tap the surface again to spread the chocolate a bit more.
  4. Add a sprinkle of nonpareils to the edges of the wings. When all 9 are done, put your surface into the refrigerator to harden the wings.

Here’s what my refrigerator looked like during the process!!

To create the body of the butterfly and glue the wings on, I put a piece of wax paper on the side of a baking pan. I piped on the body and the antennae and then placed the hardened wings into the soft chocolate. The butterflies went back into the fridge to harden.

During the production of making 36 butterflies, I talked the husband into making the buttercream icing! He did a great job! Here is the recipe he used:

  • 1 cup unsalted butter…very soft
  • 8 cups confectioners sugar
  • ½ cup milk
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • pinch of salt

Cream the butter and add 4 cups of sugar, milk, vanilla and salt. Beat until creamy, adding remaining sugar gradually until desired consistency is reached.

This recipe makes A LOT of icing. I only used ½ of it for the cupcakes.

I used a #21 piping tip to add the icing and placed the finished butterflies on top. I had a large tray to carry them over to the neighbors house which made a great presentation! Monarch butterflies are migrating now (which I didn’t know at the time!!), so the presentation kind of resembled that event!

Thanks for joining me today and I hope you will try your hand at these adorable and tasty cupcake toppers. I want to give credit to the blog I got this fun idea from…you can find her tutorial here. You might also like to check out my handpainted fondant toppers, Power Ranger cake or try your hand at some face painting (here and here)! If you like to be social, you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter! ~Consie


Wow! Those things are gorgeous, and she makes it look so easy! I feel like if I can get a cupcake frosted with store-bought icing using a butter knife I’ve done my best, but now I’m super tempted to try something fun like this. 🙂

Thanks so much for sharing this fabulous project with us Consie! Make sure you guys follow along over at Atop Serenity Hill; she really has the coolest projects (did you check out that face paint yet?!) and I know you guys will love her blog!

Signature

I link up at these awesome parties!

Jessi Wohlwend

I believe that anyone can do crafts and DIY projects, regardless of skill or experience. I love sharing simple craft ideas, step by step DIY project tutorials, cleaning hacks, and other tips and tricks all with one goal in mind: giving you the tools you need to “do it yourself”, complete fun projects, and make awesome things!

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Reader Interactions

  1. Megan Maguire says

    11 years ago

    These are so cute! Love them! I think even a failure like me at cooking could attempt them haha! 🙂

  2. Lisa {grey luster girl} says

    11 years ago

    Wow! Can you say GORGEOUS! Who wouldn’t want to eat a cupcake topped with those beauties! They may ever look too good to eat! So fun that I have to pin it! Stopping by from link party palooza :).

    • Jessi Wohlwend says

      11 years ago

      Right?! I’d feel bad eating those! Thanks so much for stopping by!

  3. Heather says

    11 years ago

    Oooh – so pretty!! Great tutorial – pinned!

  4. michelle says

    11 years ago

    great job, they look awesome!

  5. Katherines Corner says

    11 years ago

    Jessi she did a great job. I hope you will share this at the hop today xoxo

  6. Marianne L says

    11 years ago

    How cool are these?! Thanks for sharing!

  7. Jacque says

    11 years ago

    Wow these are beautiful! I am going to have to remember for these for our little ones birthday!

    • Jessi Wohlwend says

      11 years ago

      Ooh yeah, they would be perfect for a little girl’s party!

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