Cupcakes for Fun

I recently received my first order of wedding cupcakes as the entire cake with just one tier on the top for the bride and groom. I had looked online extensively doing research to learn how to set it up. There are several different stands and things available to display your cupcakes on. My thought was to use nesting boxes turned upside down and stacked on each other. Luckily, I decided to test out my idea well in advance of the wedding date, because my idea didn't work. The boxes did indeed stack nicely on each other however there was no room along the edges to put cupcakes. I even tried to line them all up on a corner in the back so that cupcakes would just be put along two sides but there still wasn't room for a cupcake to sit on the ledge. So, I began trying to think of another idea. I decided that my idea worked of nesting boxes, just my store bought boxes didn't allow for enough of a ledge for the cupcakes to sit on. So I decided to make my own boxes.

Of course that required the help of my favorite handy man, my dad! So we purchased a piece of plywood, heavy duty, and set about to turn it into stacking boxes. I figured I needed a 3.5" ledge all the way around the box for the cupcakes to sit on. So I started with a 5" box on the top. that would allow for approximately 3-4 cupcakes to sit on top if they were to be the topper. So if my first box was a 5"x5" my second box needed to add 3.5" all the way around, so I made a 12"x12" box. I made each box 4" tall so that you could still see about an inch or so of the box above the cupcake. My third box was 19"x19" and my fourth box was 26"x26". That created 5 layers that cupcakes could sit on. I figured that would handle plenty of cupcakes for what I needed.

After we got all of the boxes cut, glued and stapled together I sanded them and painted them. I wanted to have a finished product to start applying cupcakes to. My next idea then was to cover each side of the boxes and the ledge where the cupcakes would sit with scrapbook paper to match whatever theme/event the cupcakes were for. I was a little unsure what product would work the best to attach the scrapbook paper to painted plywood. A friend suggested Mod Podge.

By this point I had the boxes made, sanded, and painted. I had the idea for how to apply scrapbook paper and I had an event to use the boxes. However, the event was for a wedding and I really didn't think it was a good idea to wait to try out my boxes for a wedding someone was paying me to do the cupcakes for. So, I decided to have my own party and try out my cupcakes boxes :) I invited a bunch of friends over and started working on my boxes. I had a bunch of scrapbook paper already at home so I decided to make this party fun and festive. I found coordinating pieces of scrapbook paper and did each layer of my cupcake boxes in a different color. The bottom layers was in blue, the middle layer was in pink, and the top layer was in purple. Obviously I didn't need to use all the layers of my boxes to try it out so I took out the 5" layer and only used the larger 3 layers.

When I started applying the scrapbook paper I first used glue stick to get the paper to stay on the box just temporarily while I put the mod podge on. I learned a couple of things about putting on the scrapbook paper. One thing was that mod podge does not come off your table very easily so protect the surface you are working on :) The second thing was that I needed to go slowly and take my time to ensure that I didn't get wrinkles in the paper as I brushed on the mod podge. Other than that, I think things turned out fairly well. I liked the surface it created after the mod podge dried because I was able to wipe it off with a wet cloth. Here is a picture of the completed project with the cupcakes on it.


After I got my boxes all ready I realized I needed to make some cupcakes to go on top of my boxes. One of my good friends makes some of the yummiest cupcakes so I used her as inspiration and started creating cupcakes. I made four different kinds of cupcakes. This is a picture of the oreo cookie cupcake. I made chocolate cupcakes and after they cooled I scooped out the centers. Then I blended about 15 oreos into crumbly pieces in the blender. The texture was a little too dry for my liking so I add a large spoonful of french vanilla cool whip to the oreos and mixed it all up together. Then I filled each of the hollowed out cupcakes with the oreo cookie mix and let it chill in the refrigerator. After it had chilled for a couple of hours I made a chocolate cream frosting and piled it up on top and then add half of an oreo cookie as garnishment.



The second kind I made was peanut butter cookie. I love peanut butter so I had no choice but to create one with peanut butter. For this one I made a vanilla cupcake and again hollowed out the center. Then separately I made peanut butter cookies but I cooked them in little balls instead of flattening them. While the cookies were still hot from the oven I filled each cupcake with a cookie. Since they were still warm I was able to mold the cookie to fill up the whole space inside the cupcake. I frosted it with a peanut butter buttercream frosting and then crumbled cooled peanut butter cookies over the top. You definitely needed some milk with these :)



The third kind of cupcake I called Berrylicious. The berrylicious was in both chocolate and vanilla cupcakes. First, I filled the cupcakes with a mix of fresh strawberries and raspberries. Then I blended more berries together and added some powdered sugar to sweeten them. I had planned on this being the frosting but it was much too runny so I just filled the rest of the centers with this add made a smooth top across the top of the cupcake. I made some fluffy vanilla frosting and piled it high on top and added a fresh raspberry. The last kind of cupcake was limeade colada. I made coconut cupcakes and then made a whipped lime frosting with lime zest and then put a fresh lime sliver on the top. They were soooo yummy :)


I found a fun new blog called Bakerella. The web address is www.bakerella.blogspot.com. She makes these really fun things called cakepops. There are tons of different shapes and characters you can create. She had a really fun one for Mother's Day in the shape of flowers. So I decided I would try it out as the topper to my cupcake boxes. First you bake a boxed cake according to the directions. After it cools completely you crumble it all up and add one container of vanilla frosting. Then you shape it into little 1" balls and put them in the refrigerator to chill for about an hour or so. When they are done chilling you shape each ball into a cylinder shape. You stick a sucker stick into the bottom of it and then dip the cake ball into melted white candy melts. This took longer than I expected because the candy melts didn't cool very quickly so it kept running everywhere. After I dipped all of the cylinders into the candy melts I left them to cool. I decided it would speed the process up if I stuck them in the freezer. About 2 hours later I pulled them out of the freezer to begin creating my "flowers". Much to my horror as soon as I pulled them out of the freezer they began sweating as they came back to room temperature! I thought I had completely ruined them. Much to my surprise though, the candy melts stayed hardened and the sweating didn't cause any problems, other than putting me behind schedule for creating my flowers :) I let the cupcake pops return completely to room temperature then attempted creating the flowers. I had bought some Good 'n Plenty's to make the petals of the flowers and some different colored gumballs to be the centers of the flower. I had to stick each piece of candy into the melted candy melts and then hold it onto my cupcake pop and allow the candy melt to cool. This was a very tedious process. I had made about 60 cupcake pops but with the amount of time it took to apply all of the candies and such I only ended up with 12 cupcake flower pops. Here is a picture of the completed cupcake pops. I used a gree styrofoam cube and draped it with a piece of white fondant and then stuck the sucker sticks inside of the cube to keep them upright.



Here is a picture of the cupcake flower pops in progress.