Preheat your oven to 350 Fahrenheit and make a box of lemon cake mix then skip to step 6, or follow the instructions below to make your recipe from scratch.

In a large mixing bowl, use a hand mixer or stand mixer to cream 1 cup of room temperature butter with 1 ½ cups of regular white sugar, 1 tsp of vanilla extract and the zest and juice of one lemon.

Add ½ cup of sour cream, and one egg at a time on a low speed.

In a separate bowl, whisk together 2 ½ cups of flour, 2 tsp of baking powder, ½ a tsp of baking soda, ½ a tsp of salt.

Add ½ of your dry ingredients to the wet ingredients bowl and add ½ of your buttermilk. Stir by hand with a large spatula until almost combined. Add the rest of the dry ingredients and buttermilk and stir until just combined. Do not over-mix your batter.

Put liners into your muffin pan then scoop your cake batter into cupcake liners until they’re each about ½ full.

While your cake is baking, make your buttercream frosting by beating together butter, powdered sugar, vanilla and heavy cream (or milk).

Use one cup of room temperature unsalted butter, four cups of powdered sugar, two teaspoons of vanilla and 2-4 tablespoons of cream. Use a stand mixer or hand mixer; you won’t be able to do it with muscle and a whisk.

Color your frosting. Separate your white frosting into different bowls depending on how many colors you’d like. To start with, try about one cup of pink, one cup of purple and ¼ cup of green. I also used less than ¼ cup of yellow for some details.

Once your cupcakes are fully cooled, you can decorate them with buttercream flowers and swirls.

How do you make butter cream roses?

Start with a ‘flower nail’ tool and put a square of parchment paper on top secured with a dot of frosting so it stays attached.

Use a petal tip like Wilton’s #103. The skinny part of the tip should point up. Put a dab of frosting in the center of your flower nail. Then wrap 3 frosting petals around this dab, overlapping. Add another layer of 5 petals around the first three.

You can keep adding layers until you’re happy with how big it is.

Put your square of parchment paper with the flower on a tray and freeze it. Then you can use flower lifters (they look like scissors) to place your roses on your cupcakes wherever you’d like.

I used Wilton tip #69 but you can use any small leaf tip you’d like. If it’s your first time trying this tip out, practice on the side of your frosting bowl so you can make a bunch and reuse the frosting. Or practice on a sheet of parchment paper then scrape it off and reuse it.

To start using this tip, you can squeeze harder to start with to give the base of your leaf more structure, then relax your grip as you pull away slightly. To finish the leaf, stop squeezing out frosting and gently pull away.

If your leaves aren’t forming a point or they look very jagged, your frosting might be too cold or dense. Try warming up your piping bag with your hands and try again. You can also try pulling away slower.

Wilton tip #21 is great for making small swirls. I piped those straight on top of my cupcakes after placing the roses. I also used this tip to make small stars and added yellow dots to their centers for a different floral look.