My baby cousin, Ashley, is all grown up and getting married! She was in our wedding and she is one of my favorite people and family members (yes, I pick favorites!) I did the desserts and favors for her bridal shower and am giving you a look into the magic.
Ashley and her bridesmaids decided to go with a tea-party theme with a slight nod to Alice in Wonderland. If you've read the facts about me in the about me section, you would know that I love Wonderland and in particular, the Chesire Cat. He is my favorite literary character of all time-even beating out Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream. I love the whimsy and off-beat characters in Wonderland with their unique ways and so many quotable quotes! Ashley and her family have always been so supportive of me and my baking journey and this was a fun way to get involved in the wedding festivities!
I decided to go with 4 cupcake flavors to represent 4 different characters from Wonderland.
Cupcake flavors: Alice -Caramel Cheesecake with Homemade Whipped Cream The Queen of Hearts-Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting The Chesire Cat-Coconut Cake with Blackberry Frosting and Filling The Mad Hatter-Chocolate Cake with White Chocolate Frosting and Nutella Filling
Topper prep-When I am doing an event, I try to do as much of the prep as I can ahead of time. I decided to do candy toppers for most of the cupcakes so I could have control of how they looked. First I scrouged the depths of the internet to find things that really stood out to me as great cupcake toppers. I found striped legs for Alice, Chesire's face and the hat of Mad Hatter. I used a combination of candy melts and my ever trusty food safe pen to create details. 1. Print out design. Place parchment paper over design and melt outline color melts. Let air dry to harden. Then melt and fill in other colors per your design. Once done, if you want a cleaner look, use the back as the front and use your color safe marker to make the details. Once it dries, place in an air-tight container until use :)
Now that the cupcake toppers were done, I needed to write out an execution plan. I am a list maker to the extreme (and to much annoyance of my husband who finds my lists everywhere!) It helps me create a visual for myself and make changes as I go.
The friday afternoon, I baked all of the cupcakes. I spent time beforehand searching amazon and Michaels for the perfect cupcake liners for each character and baked everything off in it's right liner (and checked them off my list!)
Once all the cupcakes were baked and cooled, I find it easier to decorate them in my cupcake carriers so I can just put the lid on to protect them from kid fingers :) I get my plastic disposable carriers from a local cake supply shop.
I've made my frostings ahead of time to cut down on time closer to the event so the cake is fresh. I make everything and store them in air-tight containers in my fridge. You can also freeze frosting but I find it gets grainy so I don't tend to do that.
Here are 2 of my favorite recipes I've created through lots of trial and error:
My Cream Cheese Buttercream: (makes enough for 1 layer cake or 36 cupcakes) 2 sticks -or-1 cup softened unsalted butter 16 oz softened cream cheese-full fat
5 cups powdered sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3-4 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
Cream together butter and cream cheese. Mix until fluffy. Add in salt and vanilla extract. Slowly add your powdered sugar in 1/2 cups and add in whipping cream in tablespoon increments. Do this until all of your sugar and whipping cream is added. Mix on medium high speed for 2-3 minutes or until you achieve consistancy you'd like.
My Blackberry Buttercream: (makes enough for 1 layer cake or 24 cupcakes) 2 sticks softened, unsalted butter-or (1 cup)
4 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
2-3 tablespoons of milk
3/4 cup SEEDLESS blackberry preserves
1. Start by mixing up your softened butter for 2-3 minutes on medium. Then add 1/8 teaspoon salt and mix until incorporated. Slowly add your powdered sugar and milk, alternating in between to mix well. Add vanilla extract and blackberry preserves. Mix until fluffly consistenancy. If it's too thick-add 1 more tablespoon of milk at a time or if it's too runny, add 1/4 cup powdered sugar until you get the consistancy you require.
*Note-I use seedless preserves because when you are trying to pipe the frosting, the seeds get stuck in the piping tips and then you don't get the design you are trying for-but one giant mess!
Now the fun part-decorating! I've baked all the cupcakes in their character based liners and frosted with their complimentary frosting and filling. Because I made the toppers before hand, all I had to do was put them on, with the exception of the Queen of hearts cupcake I didn't like the scale of the candy crown I made so I decided to stick with heart and crown sprinkles instead. And all done and ready to be packed!
The came out so CUTE! For the display at the shower, I went to my local St. Vincent DePaul thrift store and bought a bunch of tea cups and saucers-they were so cheap. I kept some the same design but I glued some together in different configurations and spray painted them in rose gold, matte robin's egg blue and gold. I think the whole display came out great!
The bridal shower was a fun day. I had a long drive to Ann Arbor in a freezing rainstorm but I eventually made it there with everything intact. I got to see my family and celebrate my beauitful cousin and her fiance, Andrew-who is the sweetest! Oh and remember those windows that I refurbished? Those were the gift I made for the two of them. My cousin, Derek, helped me with connecting some family dots of their mom's side and Andrew's sister, Carolyn, helped me with their sides. I thought it came out so nice!
All in all, it was a lot of work. It didn't help that I was in the emergency room on thursday which totally messed up my schedule I had made so friday and saturday were super long days. I've had 2 ruptured Ovarian cysts in the last 5 weeks and apparently, my body does not like that so it goes into an awful state where I don't want to eat anything, keep down even water or do anything for a week at a time. I'm doing ok now and we're still monitoring the cysts to make sure nothing turns into a solid mass or too big. The E.R. doctors tell me that when the cyst rupture, your ovary basically twists itself up and that's why it's so painful. It's been stressful since I have had several members of my family who have had cancer-including my dad. I am determined to not worry about it until I have to because otherwise, it would just eat me alive. And none of my doctors seem to actually agree whether or not it's something serious so I will just monitor monthly or until the cysts stop growing. I know some of you may be like "SARA, TOO MUCH INFORMATION!" BUT if it hadn't been for someone else's facebook post about pain and the E.R., I wouldn't have gone into the hospital originially. You never know-so if someone reads this and is having some pain and goes in, I'm cool with that because if I didn't and the cyst kept growing, that would not have been good. Only a few people knew what was going on but if you're wondering why things have been slow here, that's why. Look for another post later this week for the details on some adorable tea-inspired cookies I did for the favors!
