ivory blue

Since I last posted to all you lovely lurkers, I took an order for some wedding cupcakes for a lovely bride and groom, Rachel and Rhys, who were married in July and had their reception in Callaghan's Bar, just outside Reading.

The bride had seen one of my cupcake stalls at a local fair and she contacted me for some sample wedding cupcakes in their colour scheme, a gorgeous royal blue and ivory. She finally settled on vanilla cupcakes decorated with buttercream swirls, hearts and tiny butterflies. Also in the design was embossing on sugarpaste discs and the hearts and a good few handrolled pearls - as requested by the bride. 


Now, why exactly would I agree to this? Or even vaguely think about it??! Apparently the usual dragees that us cake decorators rely on seem to crack people's teeth now and again.


The start of the quest - how to match the exact shade of blue in sugarpaste, and with complementary cupcake cases. The bride had asked for blue and ivory cases. Does anyone ever think about manufacturing plain, simple, sturdy, non peeling, ivory - or even a cream, pleeeeease - cupcake cases? I honestly can't tell you how many people I found hunting for them while I was hunting for them. *Just* a thought.

As they were for a wedding, foil cases were ideal, and I couldn't find anything matching the blue unless it was shiny anyway. The ivory cases were ditched. Eventually. Thanks to Catherine's Cakes for bustling me off some pretty, shiny blue cases - happy days!

I used Hummingbird Bakery's recipe for vanilla cupcakes, which - if you haven't yet come across it - is a completely lush tasting, fluffy-cupcake-creating, fail safe, and everyone-in-your-crowd pleasing recipe. All I can say is, try it. Or even better, buy one of their books. Their cocktail cupcakes are to die for!

Here are the final pictures of the cupcakes - I hope you can see the embossing detail on the sugarpaste discs and butterflies, and the larger pearls. HAND ROLLED, all three hundred or so of them... The last touch was a stroke of silver lustre for the heart accents and a sprinkling of glitter for the buttercream:

          

 ♥ Many congratulations, Rachel and Rhys! ♥