DECORATING 200 BURGUNDY CUPCAKES

My friend asked me to decorate 200 cupcakes for her daughters wedding. the wedding colours were burgundy, navy, silver and white.

A) BAKING THE CUPCAKES

I do not have a commercial kitchen so we had to get the caterer to bake the cupcakes in silver cupcake liners. This is the recipe I requested because it tastes great and freezes well.

Best Chocolate Cupcakes

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa (best quality available)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup whole milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (best quality available)

1 cup boiling water

Directions

1) Line muffin tin with cupcake liners.  Heat oven to 350*F.

2) In a large mixing bowl, stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

3) Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla.  Beat on medium speed for one minute.

4) Stir in boiling water. The batter will be thin.

5) Fill liners 2/3 full with batter.  (I usually put the batter into a large measuring cup with a pour spout, and then pour the batter into the liners.) Bake cupcakes for approximately 18-22 minutes.

Freezing the Cupcakes

The caterer made the cupcakes on the Tuesday before the wedding and froze them in large food safe containers.

They were taken out of the freezer the day before the wedding and put in a cool basement then we placed in clamshells so they could be decorated.

B) PREPARING THE FLOWERS

4 - 5 days before the wedding, I air brushed all the burgundy flowers and my Mom painted the white flowers. The burgundy roses were air brushed with a solution of vodka and Lustre Dust from J. Wilton. We found the premade burgundy roses a little dull and decided to air brush them with Tomato Red and Pink Pearl.

Check out our short video on how quick it is to spray one rose.

Recipe for Air Brush Spray

1 teaspoon volka

1/16 teaspoon Red Pearl Lustre Dust

3/16 teaspoon Tomato Red Lustre Dust

If fractions are not your thing. The amount of Red Pearl and Tomato Red adds up to ¼ teaspoon of powder.

To apply this recipe to spray another colour rather than burgundy.

Choose a colour that has your pre-made flowers main colour in it and a small amount of a pearl dust that compliments it . For example if you are using Royal Blue pre-made roses. Mix Super Blue Lustre Dust and Blue Pearl together to get a beautiful colour for your flowers. Always experiment with one or two flowers to see if you have achieved the look you want.

 We also hand painted the small white roses with an amazing product called Hybrid Sparkle Dust mixed with a small amount of vodka. We had to hand paint these because this product will not go through an air brush. The result was gorgeous.

C) DECORATING THE CUPCAKES

The next step was piping the white buttercream on the cupcakes then placing the readymade flowers and leaves in the icing. We did this one clamshell at a time. It took 4 hours and 2- recipes (9 cups each) of Wedding Buttercream. Using a disposable bag and a 1M tip I put a swirl of icing on top of the cupcake.  You don't have to be perfect because the flowers are going to cover up a lot.

We had three styles of cupcakes. All of them we used a 1M tip with a disposable bag.

White buttercream with one 1 3/4 inch burgundy rose + 2 rose leaves on a chocolate cupcake.

White buttercream with three 11/4 inch burgundy roses + 2 leaves + three silver dragees (little candy balls) on a coconut cupcake.

White buttercream with one 1 inch burgundy rose + two small white roses + 2 leaves on a coconut cupcake.

 

Decorating the cupcakes took two of us 3 1/2 hours. The decorated cupcakes were left in the clamshells over night at room temperature. (We left them in a cool basement on an August evening.)

The next day we transported them to the reception hall and put them on the stand 1 hour before the reception. The cupcakes were fresh and the icing stayed nice. Yea!

 

C) BUYING THE FLOWERS

When buying the readymade flowers calculate how many flowers you need for each cupcake and multiply by the of cupcake you are making. Then look at the box of readymade flowers and divide total number you need by how many flowers per box to know how many boxes to buy. We had almost no breakage.

1 3/4 inch Large Burgundy Rose - 1 for 100 cupcakes =100 roses

1 1/4  inch Burgundy Rose - 3 for 50 cupcakes - 150 roses + 1 for 50 cupcakes - 50 roses TOTAL = 200- 1 1/4 roses

1/2 inch White Rose - 2 for 50 cupcakes = 100 roses

2 rose leaves for each cupcake - 400 leaves