Bridal Shower Cupcakes

This is more a show-and-tell than a full post, but I was very pleased with how my recent foray into baking turned out. Butcher Son’s girlfriend was throwing a bridal shower for one of her oldest friends. I offered to help with some baking and was given free rein to come up with a cupcake for the occasion. Forgetting to ask what the color scheme was, I decided to go simple: white and gold.

I baked a basic white cupcake in pretty white fluted wrappers. Then I made a rich dark chocolate ganache, which I then cooled and whipped to fluffy goodness. I used this as a filling. Now I am sure there are 100 ways to fill cupcakes. I personally use two methods. One is the put the filling in a pastry bag and just inject it into the center of the cupcake with a medium-sized round tip. This causes the cupcake to grow or expand a bit, raising the top of the cupcake. Only a small annoyance and the quickest way to do it. The second method, which I used this time, involves cutting off a small top and scooping out a bit of the cake. I simply use the back end of a large frosting tip. I just screw it into the cake and pull it out, releasing the piece of cake. Then I use a baby spoon to scoop out a bit of the cake, fill it almost to the top and then replace the cake top, pushing down slightly. This is what the steps looks like:

Once this process is complete and the cake is frosted, you cannot even see the cutout. I then made a simple vanilla bean buttercream (see the flakes of vanilla bean?) and piped it on decoratively. I topped these off with edible gold flake hearts. So cute, and tasty too.

As a final touch, I made 24 bridal shower picks to stick into the cupcakes. This was a very simple process. I happened to have some round labels (Avery 22807) and just downloaded a template from the Avery site. There are 145 decorative templates for this particular label. Lots to choose from for any occasion. Then, using my round punch, I cut out 24 rounds from sturdy white paper and sandwiched a toothpick between one label and one paper round. Voila! I do not have a picture of the final product with the pick, as the lid of the bakery box would not fit on the cupcakes with the picks on. But this is what the picks looked like – 4 sayings, 6 of each.