cupcake tower wedding "cake"....!

...so this was my first attempt at a cupcake tower for my aunt's wedding a couple of weeks ago....with a 6 inch 4 layer cake on top....

...roses piped on with a wilton #1M tip and then topped with large pearl non-pareils.....

.....the cupcakes are iced with vanilla buttercream tinted green, pink, or left plain white (make sure you use clear vanilla or you'll get off white buttercream)....some were also iced with chocolate fudge icing (store bought and mixed with about 2 cups of the vanilla buttercream).....all iced with the same wilton #1M tip.....

...for anyone who may need to make a ton of cupcakes (i made about 150), this was my plan of action....started baking batches (30-40ish) of cupcakes that monday (wedding was on saturday).....as soon as the cupcakes were cool, put them into large zip lock bags (get as much as the air out of the bag)....then immediately freeze....did this on tuesday, wednesday, and thursday too...on wednesday, thursday, and friday made the icings.....i batch for each color (this ended up being the perfect amount...1 batch iced about 35-40 cupcakes).....on friday defrosted all the cupcakes and then immediately iced and topped with the same pearl non-pareils as on the cake....

.....these had to be transported about 2 hours so the best "container" i found were those big costco cardboard boxes they give you to carry all the bulk items home....pack the cupcakes tight so there's not a lot of room to slide....i finished icing all the cupcakes on the friday before the wedding so covered the boxes with plastic wrap and stored in our cool basement area overnight....

....i used a cupcake tower to display them on and assembled everything once we got to the location....the cupcake tower is just sturdy white cardboard...the edges are not finished so i covered it in ribbon (secured with white pins).....pretend you don't see the ribbon coming off the edge in the pic below! oh and if you are going to re-use the cupcake tower just know that the cardboard may get some stains because of the cupcake liners or if any of the frosting gets on it too....(think it's fine tho because you just cover the stain up the next time with more cupcakes!)

...this was a lot of fun and for me it wasn't too stressful to make so many cuppies since i planned it pretty well and i wasn't up til 3 am frosting cupcakes (that said if i needed like 300 i may have been a lot more stressed!)....and most importantly....

CONGRATULATIONS SUSIE AND EBB!!!

thanks for letting me play a part on your special day!....(last photo by PB n' J Photography....they were AWESOME!)

tidy mom works for me wednesday

donuts and cupcakes...!

...so these were some fun treats for a 4th of july party....i've made the mini donuts before here and since they were so easy and pretty tasty went with them again but tried a different recipe that i found on 100 cafe street for fluffy baked donuts....

....i had to substitute wheat pastry flour for the cake flour because i didn't have enough regular flour (go figure) and definitely didn't have the cake flour....and i needed to make these quick without time to run out to the store....so i modified the recipe a little (used 2 cups of the wheat pastry flour with about 1 tablespoon of cornstarch per 1 cup of flour)....needless to say these were not fluffy donuts, and ended up being more "cake-y" but still tasty---i also used fresh grated nutmeg so they had a good cinnamon/nutmeg flavor....!

...it's much easier to put the batter into a zip lock bag and then "pipe" into the donut pans versus spooning the batter in....it's quicker and you end up with more perfect little donuts when baked...

...the glaze is just 2-3 cups of powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon of milk, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla....add milk until you get the nice glaze thickness needed for dipping the donuts....also when you add the vanilla (not the clear kind) you get a kinda beige color glaze...when i added blue liquid food coloring...the blue i got was a teal color instead of royal blue....if you use the food gels (wilton, americolor) you might not have this issue....although i didn't mind since i actually love this color blue...(although it's not as 4th of july as I wanted!)

....and since i didn't want beige for the white...i used lemon extract to flavor the glaze instead of vanilla....then dip the donuts in the glaze and sprinkle immediately with your choice of sprinkles or other toppings....

...or you can drizzle on with a fork for some jackson pollack mini donuts....!

...or you can use them as toppers for some mini cupcakes....(i've mean meaning to make these since i saw just jenn's famous coffee & donuts cupcakes about 2 years ago!)

...and you end up with some double decker 4th of july donut cupcakes...!

...i hope everyone had a great holiday weekend, or just a great weekend in general if you are not in the states....we ended up in the ER on monday with our first trip for stitches...! my little guy fell and split his chin open...he is so awesome, barely cried and fell asleep while getting his 5 stitches...!

p.s. please email or leave a comment if you have found a "fluffy" baked donut recipe!

tidy mom works for me wednesday

simple 4th of july snacks....!

....so as soon as i spotted these liberty goldfish at my local Targé...i knew i had to do something for the upcoming 4th of july holiday....and these snacks are super simple....pretzels, chocolate kisses, and the baked red, white, and blue goldfish crackers....(i've done these before with pretzels, candy melt, and plain m&m's on top....very easy and quick to put together)....for these i had a ton of hershey's kisses from an impulse buy at costco....so decided to go with them instead of candy melts....

....line a baking sheet with pretzels (i used the square shaped ones but whatever shape you like as the base)....add a hershey's kiss, and pop in a preheated 170 degree oven for about 5 mins or until the kisses are just melted....

....here's where i had a bit of a snafu....so impatient me....at about 3 minutes....the chocolate was not really getting squishy enough to add a goldfish cracker nicely....so i increased the heat to about 250....after a couple more minutes, still not melty....so what did i do...yeah...cranked the heat again to about 300...(yep i did)....and thought....oh no maybe that was not a good idea with real chocolate......

...i ended up with crunchy hershey's kisses....which in case you were wondering refuse to melt anymore even if you attempt to nuke them in the microwave....

....so i went with plan B, or my favorite stuff....chocolate candy melts or wafers.....and this worked much better.....put the pretzels topped with a candy melt into a 170 degree oven for about 3 minutes and then immediately top with the goldfish cracker (or any other topper you have on hand...)

....and you get a bunch of red, white, and blue sweet and salty snacks for the 4th of july holiday.....!

....oh and it seems pepperidge farm is making the colors with natural ingredients too....the box says the colors come from beet juice concentrate, huito juice concentrate, watermelon juice concentrate, paprika, and paprika extract....

...so afterwards i googled "melting hershey's kisses" and it seems like they should melt just fine in a low temp oven....so lesson learned....i need to be much more patient with chocolate...! if anyone has other stories of melting chocolate badly please share them with me so i can blame the chocolate and not me... :)

....have a great week and 4th of july weekend!

tidy mom works for me wednesday

the big lebowski white russian cupcakes..!

....is this you're homework larry?....so kinda like with this storm trooper peep post....either you'll get these cupcakes or you won't!....(apologies if you don't....you'll just have to bear with me...in fact sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes, well he eats you--sorry, again sorry!)

...these were made for father's day for the big kid around here...it was a "big lebowski" themed father's day....and now he says every father's day needs a theme (remind me why i do this to myself??)....

...of course these are white russian cupcakes with kahlua buttercream (recipes that i found over at baked perfection).....

...and just briefly here are what these are supposed to be......

1. the Dude abides
2. "the jesus" as in what would jesus do (WWJD)?
3. the Dude's bowling shirt
4. donny's ashes and folgers can
5. bowling balls
6. maude's viking helmet

....most of the decorations are made from candy melt traced onto images over parchment (see this post for more details on how), the bowling shirt is made like in this post, and the bowling balls are peppermint malt balls and holes drawn on with a black food writer)...the ashes are made with wilton elegant shimmer dust and i sprinkled the same shimmer dust in gold over the rest of the cupcakes for a little something extra!....

...again, apologies if you have no clue what the heck this post means...maybe i was OVER THE LINE...!

....and happy father's day dude!....sometimes there's a man...sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place...he fits right in there....and you are that dude and an awesome dad....xxoo.

tidy mom works for me wednesday