Cupcakes and the concrete jungle where dreams are made of!

First things first, apologies for the lack of posting recently.  Rest assured, this was not due to a lack in baking...oh no the baking has continued, but there was a lack of internet which was more than a little frustrating! How did we ever live without it, hey?! but I'm back online and have lots of goodies to post for you.

Starting with these...they may look like Valentine's cupcakes but actually it's just a co-incidence with the timing.  I got an email this week from one of my best friends back home in England.  A few months ago her boyfriend proposed to her in the middle of Central Park on a carriage ride in New York City!! Pretty awesome, right? So now they are planning a fun and fantastic wedding for September and what would she like me to contribute? cupcakes of course! There is no greater joy than baking for me...but baking for such a special event - well that makes me super excited! 

So she told me her colour scheme is white and red, and that I absolutely had to make my Martha Stewart Brownie Cupcakes because she has never eaten a tastier cupcake! My baking supplies over here in TCI are limited.  Whilst they have a good range of baking ingredients here on Island (because most of them are American) they are severely lacking in the decorating part.  

So I made do with the decorations I brought over in my suitcase, yes I sat and picked my way through a jar of patriotic sprinkles sorting all the red and white ones but you do what you have to do! 

and this is what I threw together this afternoon, just for fun and as a little sampler for my friend to see and decide if I am on the right track for what she was hoping for! 

In the meantime, for those of you not planning September red and white themed weddings, they are perfect for a little Valentine's inspiration! 

Fondant is not my friend

I have just arrived back from dropping the cakes off at the church for the wedding this morning. I took my inspiration from the wedding cupcakes featured in Martha Stewart's cupcake book.

I baked 50 vanilla cupcakes (using the Hummingbird's recipe) and frosted them with vanilla (from the Primrose Bakery...just to mix it up a little!) Each fondant heart was imprinted with a letter: either R or N (the initals of the bride and groom). I searched the internet high and low for some stamps to use for this purpose, they weren't easy to come by! Eventually I found these and they seemed to work well.

I frosted them last night and stuck the little fondant hearts in the icing, as I thought it was best to do this whilst the icing was fresh to help them stick. This was where it all went wrong and why fondant is not my friend. This morning I woke up and went to check on the cupcakes and imagine my horror when I found that all the hearts had flopped over!! Disaster, there was of course not time to make a whole new set of hearts since they take so long to try out. I could have cried! So I had a play around with them and tried to prop them up some more with minor success, but lesson learnt I will always add the decorations on the morning so this doesn't happen! I can only assume that the moisture from the buttercream softened them up again.

You can see a floppy one in the background here! I arranged the cupcakes in layers with 2 layers of the bride's initials and 2 layers of the groom's and then I finished off the top layer with cupcakes of both initials (uniting them together!).

So now I'm ready to enjoy the Easter weekend!! I've had a pretty hectic few weeks of baking so am hoping my sister who works for the English Cheesecake company will provide the desserts this time round, and I'll have a little rest!

Wedding cupcakes

Mel had a cupcake tower at the wedding too. Her theme was turquoise and purple..and she sort of had a Thai theme with Thai caterers etc.. and orchids as the table decorations so the turquoise cupcakes were coconut and the purple ones were chocolate. They had buttercream icing with a fondant heart and a fondant top cake. It was a pretty awesome day. Congrats Mel and Arne.

5. My polka dot wedding cupcakes!!

I had decided I definitely wanted a tower of cupcakes for my wedding and since it was polka dot themed..what else could feature but spots! so By's Gran who has made several wedding cakes in the past..although nothing quite like this! took on the task and whilst I was hoping for buttercream frosting (since it is my fave) we decided that would be too much prep on the day so fondant icing it was and Flo dyed some icing fuschia pink and made all the little polka dots. They were chocolate cupcakes with mint flavouring and then a thin layer of jam to stick the icing to the cake and they were certainly a talking point! I was glad too to find fuschia cupcake cases!