...and the wedding recap

Well my friends, as promised, here are the rest of the pics from our busy wedding weekend.

In case you missed it, the wedding cupcakes you see here are the culmination of a whole year's worth of study and practice in all things cake related. (This was cupcake armageddon! My big TAA-DAAAAH!)

All in all, I was very proud of how the cupcakes turned out. I thought they looked nearly professional and people simply raved about the flavor. I wish I had counted how many times I heard "you MADE these?!" during the evening, but I was too busy dancing and sipping champagne! Do you know that we didn't have a single cupcake leftover after the wedding reception? How often does that happen? So yeah, I think I'm going to call this one a success! Hooray!

CaraCakes' Spicy Fall Wedding Cuppycakes

with Pumpkin Cream Cheese filling and Maple Buttercream Icing

If you want the recipe, here's the link back to the original post.
I did make one or two adjustments to the recipe for the final go-round. I added a bit more pumpkin to the pumpkin cream cheese filling and doubled the maple flavor in the icing to 1t. just to make the flavor more pronounced.

And without further ado, the pics:

Ladies and gentlemen, gather your spices!


Beating the cream cheese and butter for the filling. Obviously this is a double batch...


Mmmmmm pumpkinny orange color


Here are a couple tricks I've learned when making cupcakes you have to carry somewhere. 1) Line the bottom of a cake box with a cake board or cardboard to make the box more sturdy. 2) Fill and frost the cupcakes INSIDE the box! You can fold up the sides of the box after you're done filling and frosting, and then you don't have to worry about smearing the frosting as you're trying to get them nestled in their places.

Of course I had to sample one! Really, it was just to get the pic for you. Really it was. I could have eaten all 96 of them just like this, but everyone else wanted frosting. Sigh.


Through the cake box window, 24 swirly frosted cuppies.


A closeup of a sparkly fondant leaf. Remember my friend from up North who does lots of gorgeous cakes? She volunteered to make all the fondant leaves for me as a wedding gift so I wouldn't have to worry about decorations and I could just focus on the cupcakes. Didn't she do an amazing job? These are all colored, cut, shaped and sparkled by hand!


The finished product!


Last but not least... big smiles all around!


So with a big sigh of relief, there it is. I'd love to hear what you thought of the project, the final results, and any of the other projects I have attempted and displayed here for you over the last year.

So is this the end of the blog? I really don't think so. I'm kind of on a bite-sized dessert kick now. I'm sure in our new location, life will call for cupcakes (maybe Air Force cupcakes?) and I promise to keep updating you on my adventures in frosting!

Love,
CaraCakes

Finally!

Hello again,
I bet you thought you'd lost me? Well, the weekend after our wedding my new hubby and I packed up and moved to Scott Air Force Base in Illinois for a new 2 year assignment, and with all the moving mayhem, I have just recently recovered (unpacked) my camera and all the wedding pics. So I apologize for the belated post, but I promise it will be worth the wait!

Ok, first things first! Back in September when I made the cherry chocolate chip cupcakes for the Triple Play Birthday post, my hubby decided he liked the flavor so much that he wanted me to make those for the wedding instead of my Pumpkin Spice cupcake recipe that I had been working on all year! Yikes! What to do? I tried convincing him that cherry chocolate chip wasn't a fall-themed flavor, but when my argument fell flat, I opted for a compromise - I'd just make both! Why not have a Harley themed groom's cake with a flavor he really loves for our family bbq on Friday, and have my pumpkin spice cupcakes for the big reception on Saturday? That's a LOT of cupcakes, but it's the best of both worlds!

So Wednesday, I set about making the Cherry Chip recipe. You can read all about the recipe and see pics of the work in progress in the September post. Hubby liked them with chocolate frosting instead of the cherry vanilla in the recipe, so that's what I went with. And yes, I used canned chocolate frosting (you know me by now!). It was easier for me, and since the cupcakes were from scratch I figured I could cheat on the frosting a bit.

In going with our Harley-themed bbq, I used silver wrappers for the cupcakes, along with some silver and black Harley picks I purchased online and a Hog cake topper. I made 2 batches of cupcakes and used one more batch of batter to bake a 6" round as a cutting cake. I split the cake into 2 layers and frosted the middle, and decorated the whole thing with maraschino cherry halves. The final touches were milk- and white- chocolate motorcycles made with molds I purchased here and dusted with edible silver luster dust. Here are the pics!












The cupcakes went into the fridge and were still moist and delicious on Friday. If you're going to refrigerate these cupcakes, make sure you let them come to room temperature before you serve them. They are butter-recipe, and so they're really dense when they're cold. Otherwise, we were still eating the leftovers a week later and they tasted great!

So that was round one for the wedding weekend. Round 2? Look for a post later this week. Stay tuned!

Love,
CaraCakes

Cupcake success, but where's my camera?!

Well my friends, the big day has come and gone and the cupcake-ing was a big success! I made a groom's cake and 24 cupcakes, and the wedding cake and 96 cupcakes for that... and I have lots of great pics in my camera, which is nowhere to be found after all the mayhem this weekend!!! So until I can locate it, let me leave you with one pic of the finished wedding cake (which is what I know you want to see!) and a couple pics of the groom's cake and I will update later this week when I find my camera.

Love,
CaraCakes

Teaser!

3 days left! 3 days left! It's almost here!!! Tomorrow is cupcake insanity day for your good pal CaraCakes... I'll be in the kitchen making 8 dozen wedding cuppycakes and a cutting cake for the top. Wish me luck, friends! This is where the rubber meets the road. Er, the spatula meets the frosting? In the meantime, here's a teaser of the project I did today... more to come!!!



Love,
CaraCakes