Cupcake Towers and Tiny Italians -- when friends get married

What could possibly be better than a spring wedding involving people you love? Not much. April 1 my dear friends Hans and Julia were married, and they're now chilling in Hawaii for their honeymoon. (Where it's warm. And there are beaches. And palm trees. And drinks with little umbrellas. And, yes, I'm jealous.)

Julia was arguably the chillest, most NON-bridezilla bride I've ever known, both in the weeks leading up the wedding and even during wedding week and wedding day. Seriously. The wedding was beautiful. And I had SO much fun working on cupcakes for one of her bridal showers and the groom's cake for the wedding.

The shower (a couple of weeks before the wedding) was a fun time for the ladies at church to hang out and...er..."shower" Julia with love. And kitchen appliances. Here she is with her new food processor:

Here's the cupcake tower. There were two kinds of cupcakes: key lime with blackberry filling and key lime frosting, and banana with Nutella filling (heck, yeah!) and cream cheese frosting (yum!). There were regular-sized and minis.

Here's a wider shot of the table: cupcake tower, chocolate fountain (yes, I said chocolate fountain), and a plethora of items waiting to be dipped in the chocolate...I'm getting hungry just thinking about it again.

Lovely.

THEN there was the groom's cake, which I had an absolute blast working on! Hans requested an old-school Mario Brothers cake, and I was more than happy to take on the challenge. This was crazy-good nostalgia for me (ah, the days of original Nintendo...Mario Brothers...Duck Hunt...good times).

The cake was a two-tier round, butter-rum flavor, with butter-rum buttercream. I also tried my hand at making my own homemade fondant for the first time...and discovered that it is SO much better than the store-bought Wilton stuff. Much better to work with, much cheaper, and much tastier. (Thanks for the recipe, Brianna!)

I colored all the fondant and hand-cut every individual piece of decor. Yes, it took forever. But it was a blast. How cute is this?

Okay, so I didn't make EVERY piece. Mario and Peach I ordered...though I did make Peach's bridal veil. And the castle came from Michael's--all I had to do was paint it (with nontoxic paint!).

Here's the final product:

Pictures from the wedding (and these are WONDERFUL pictures; the photographer did an excellent job!) are here. There's even a shot of my cake (a much better shot than I took!).

Congratulations, Hans and Julia! Love you guys!

One cake, two cake, red cake, blue…well, you know

I made the mistake a while back of buying a buttercream-scented air freshener for my car. Those durned Yankee Candle people are too good at their job; the thing smelled so real it made me ravenous for cupcakes every time I went anywhere. (I wonder if this would work with bacon-scented air freshener?)

Once the buttercream smell wore off, I went with a safer option: “Ocean Breeze” or something like that. It’s nice. Except that I’ve been baking and transporting so many cupcakes the last few weeks, the car STILL smells like frosting—the real thing this time. Oy. Seriously, I think the interior may just about be permanently infused with the scent by now. (Want to come ride with me? Ha.)

It’s been quite the variety, too—cupcakes in every shape and color and size: baseball team cupcakes, wedding cupcakes, birthday party cupcakes. I admit, I enjoy the diversity; it’s fun putting my “creative” hat.

Anyway, because it’s been a while since my last post, and because I’ve got quite a few pictures to show you, I’ll get to it. Thus (drumroll, please), I present to you…cupcakes. A lot of them.

This first set was something new for me: cupcakes for a baseball team. They requested the team logo in edible form, so I busted out the fondant and went to work hand-cutting the little suckers. See?

The cupcakes were basic: yellow cake, classic buttercream. It was the hand-cutting that really took a while. But I was happy with the outcome, and so were the boys (though I have to say, I think their team logo looks oddly like the starship Enterprise…but that could just be me).

Okay, moving on. Cupcake job #2 was also a first: an entire cupcake tower for my friend Marissa’s wedding. I had so much fun with these. (And my dad did an EXCELLENT job building the cupcake tower for me. Thanks, Dad!)



There were all different designs, and both regular and miniature-sized cupcakes (as well as the small cake at the top of the tower). Plus, I made four different flavor combos: butter rum cake with rum frosting, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, chocolate/chocolate, and vanilla bean cake with almond frosting. Mm.

Aaand, last but not least, job #3 (from just yesterday, actually): mini cake plus cupcakes for a little girl’s first birthday party. Cute stuff. Bright pink, purple, yellow, polka dots…yep, I like it.

There was a classic white cake with white buttercream—a small sized one just for the birthday girl. There also were two dozen miniature white cupcakes with vanilla buttercream, for the kids.

AND for the adults (this is my favorite part): two dozen white chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate buttercream and raspberry filling, and a dozen lemon cupcakes with lemon buttercream and whipped cream and fresh berries inside.

Oh. Man. {{ heart eyes for filled cupcakes}}

I mean, look at this:

I don’t usually eat too much of my own baking (I prefer to force them on give them to my neighbors and/or family members). But this is my exception. Here’s evidence.

And Mom helped.

And, because I haven’t offered any recipes in a while, here’s one of my favorites for you:

Classic Yellow Cupcakes
 1¼ cups sifted cake flour
 ½ teaspoon baking powder
 ¼ teaspoon baking soda
 ¼ teaspoon salt
 ¾ cup + 2 tablespoons white sugar, divided
 5 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled slightly
 ½ cup buttermilk, room temperature
 1 teaspoon pure vanilla
 3 teaspoons vegetable oil
 3 large egg yolks, room temperature
 2 large egg whites, room temperature

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners. Set aside.

2. Whisk dry ingredients and ¾ cup sugar together in large bowl. In separate bowl, whisk together melted butter, buttermilk, oil, vanilla, and egg yolks.

3. In a third bowl, beat egg whites on medium-high speed until foamy, about 30 seconds. Gradually add remaining 2 tablespoons sugar; continue to beat until peaks just form, 30 to 60 seconds. (Whites should hold peak but should still appear moist.) Set aside.

4. On low speed, gradually pour butter mixture into flour mixture; mix until almost incorporated (a few streaks of dry flour will remain), about 15 seconds. Stop mixer and scrape bottom and sides of bowl. On medium-low speed, beat until smooth and fully incorporated, 10 to 15 seconds. Stir 1/3 of whites into batter; then gently fold in remaining whites until no streaks remain.

5. Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups. Bake until toothpick comes out clean, about 18 minutes. (Cake may still appear damp.) Cool in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes; then cool completely on rack, about 1 hour.

Note: Makes about a dozen cupcakes.

Bakery-Style Buttercream
 ½ cup Crisco
 ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
 ½ teaspoon butter-flavor extract
 ½ teaspoon rum or almond extract
 3 cups confectioners’ sugar
 milk

Beat Crisco and butter until very smooth and creamy. Gradually add sugar and extracts. Beat well until light and fluffy, adding milk (by the half-teaspoon) and/or more sugar as needed to reach desired consistency.

Wedding Pics (Finally)

Yep, I'm finally posting pics from the rehearsal dinner and wedding! And rather than waste space rambling, I'll just let the pictures do most of the talking. Oh, and I'll give you the menus.

Friday night was the rehearsal dinner, a Southwest burrito buffet. The meats I am NOT posting pictures of (shredded meat, in a basement, under fluorescent lighting...well, it just does not photograph well), but they were a cilantro-lime chicken and adobo chili beef. There were all the fixings, too: tortillas, cheese, sour cream...plus black beans and rice, chips and salsa, etc.

For sides, I made a layered Southwest salad with cilantro lime vinaigrette. It didn't photograph so well either, so use your imagination. Then there were these little cheddar pepper corn muffins, served with chili cream cheese spread. LOVE these; they're so yummy.

Here's a picture of the dessert/coffee/drink table. Dessert was white chocolate fruit tart and cookies. Drinks were the standard (water, tea, coffee, etc.) plus horchata! (That's a sweet Mexican rice milk spiced with cinnamon, if you've never had it.)

Oh, and here are the two "specialty" salsas: cilantro/lime-corn salsa and a mango pepper salsa.

Here's a picture of ME taking pictures of the dessert table. Haha.

Closeup action for the white chocolate fruit tart. Mm.

THEN, moving on to the wedding (Saturday afternoon).

This was an afternoon dessert buffet. Here's the one picture I have of my prep work the night before. I'd like to point out three things: (1) the crazy number of chocolates covering the dining table turned workspace, (2) the fact that the entire table is covered in bubble wrap (long story), and (3) the lovely Starbucks apron I'm wearing. Adam doesn't work at Starbucks anymore but generously donated his old aprons to my kitchen collection--and they're GREAT.

Okay, moving on to the day of. The menu included the following:

• spinach dip and crackers
• fruit and cheese skewers
• sweet breads: banana chocolate chip, frosted pumpkin rum spice, and cherry almond
• cheesecake bites--two kinds: white chocolate almond and chocolate chip cookie dough
• candies: cookies 'n cream truffles, red velvet cake truffles, chocolate-dipped cherries and apricots, and (heart shaped!) peppermint creams
• miniature trifle cups, in two flavors: pumpkin spice and black forest
• mint water, raspberry tea, and virgin autumn sangria

Here are some pictures, in no particular order.

In this one you can see the crackers and dip, plus the pumpkin spice trifles (with gingersnap garnishes!):

Here are the fruit and cheese skewers and sangria:

Here, cherry almond bread chunks:

Here, cookie dough cheesecake bites (bottom left), black forest trifles, and chocolate chip banana bread (on the right).

White chocolate almond cheesecake bites, banana bread (again), and pumpkin rum spice bread...

These are some of the candies (on Marla's adorable lazy Susan):

And some more of them:

Here's my caterer's cameo shot: me getting ready to go re-stock the candy trays.

Oh, and a final shot of the sangria. (Isn't it pretty? I loved the presentation on this.)

I have to say, this was a lot of fun and great experience...but I'm glad it's over! Next time, no back-to-back rehearsal and wedding. Whew!