On Friday, my beautiful amazing baby sister-in-law Mags married the Dutchman, AKA The Nicest Man Alive and the whole day was absolutely delightful. You may remember that last year I made some cupcakes for Mags’ birthday. Well she liked them so much she’s been talking about them ever since and asked me to make them for her wedding – I was more than happy to oblige. We all knew that the results wouldn’t be picture perfect but when things taste absolutely amazing nobody really cares. And these were a big hit.
A few tips if you ever want to take on one of these projects for yourself: preparation is key. Anything that can be made ahead of time should be done to give you plenty of time to spare. That meant that the Pie and I sat down for three hours one night and chocolate-dipped over 120 individual maraschino cherries, but that was fine. It was a good togetherness moment. Our marriage became stronger as a result of our struggle.
Icings and ganaches can also be made a few days in advance and kept in the fridge. Even the cupcakes can be made up to two or three days beforehand. Just make sure that if this is the case you use a recipe that contains a good amount of fat to keep them moist, like sour cream or butter. When you’re ready to assemble make sure your icings and ganaches are at room temperature and everything is super handy for you to reach when you need it.
I also made a wee cake topper for Mags and the Dutchman to cut at the reception, and to match the glittery winter theme I added edible pearls for gloss.
And this cool sparkly snow-like sugar.
When you’re putting together 120 cupcakes, do things in stages. That means do all the ganache layers first, for example, before working on piping on the icing.
Then when you’re doing the icing you can just power through and do it all in one fluid movement.
These plastic carrying containers saved my life this time around. They cost me $6.25 each at the cake store but they are worth their weight in gold. Though they’re not very heavy. So they’re probably worth about $6.25 in gold.
I sprinkled on some pearls and snow on the cupcakes as well to match the topper.
And the finished arrangement, using the cupcake stands I made this summer. Apparently as people were leaving they searched for carry-out cases to try to steal as many as they could!
