Cupcakepalooza and the Bing Wedding

The Newlyweds

 Last week the baby of our family, Brandyn, married the love of his life, the beautiful Miss Taylor. In celebration of this special day we had a big BBQ, and the bride requested some cupcakes for the event...roughly 100 of them.

 The request was for Chocolate Cake with Oreo Buttercream Frosting, Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, and White Cake with a Strawberry Buttercream Frosting.  This time around I did not make the old family recipe for the carrot cake, it takes too long and I didn't have enough time to make it from scratch, I did however doctor a box cake and it tasted pretty amazing, I did use the frosting recipe that is on the link.

Additions to Duncan Hines Carrot Cake: roughly 1 cup of chopped nuts (I used pecans), 1 box of vanilla instant pudding, 1 20 ounce can of crushed pineapple (strained), used butter instead of oil, and milk instead of water.  It ended up being super moist and quite delicious.

It took roughly 3 hours to bake 125+ cupcakes at my aunt's house, thank goodness for double ovens, two kitchen aid mixers, and a talented chef of a boyfriend who volunteered to help.  We let them cool in the fridge over night and came back in the morning to decorate, where I enlisted the help of my guy and my cousin who had also gone to culinary school and was trained in the arts of decorating for the masses.

Real Men Frost Cupcakes

Devil's Food Cake with Oreo Buttercream

White Cake with Strawberry Buttercream 

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting 

Cupcake Display (created by Taylor)

Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

I found a recipe online for raspberry buttercream frosting and used strawberries instead. The only problem was that the recipe was too runny to frost the cupcakes with so we had to double the butter and God only knows how much powdered sugar was added.  I'm going to post the recipe as I made it originally, but make sure you have extra sugar and butter so you can bring it to your desired stiffness.

Ingredients:

•  1 pound powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup pureed strawberries

Directions:

beat the ingredients together, adding sugar and butter until mixed well and you have your desired consistency.  The finished product tastes like a strawberry milkshake and is delicious whether its topping a cupcake or straight out of the batter bowl

Oreo Buttercream Frosting

My grandmother's 81st birthday was this weekend, and my mom wanted it to be potluck style.  I was assigned to bring the birthday cake, which is awesome, because if I'm bringing anything to a potluck type party I want to bring desserts or an appetizer, I'm not usually too stoked on bringing a main course if I don't have to.  Grandma requested a chocolate cake, and the rest was left to my imagination.  I used a Duncan Hines Devil's Food Cake box mix, but instead of using oil, I used butter, and instead of water, I used milk, and added a packet of chocolate instant pudding mix. These substitutions help the box cakes taste more homemade.  I wanted to do something different with the frosting than chocolate or vanilla, and I remembered the MOST AMAZING cupcake I had in Los Angeles, at a cupcakery called Crumbs, a few years back and it had a cookies and cream frosting.  I wanted to see if I could do something similar, so off to Google my fingers ran, until  I found the recipe that I was able to slightly modify to make the best frosting I've had in my whole life.  The original can be found here. 

This is the recipe I used (nearly identical to the link)

• 1 cup softened butter
• 3.5 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 1 cup finely crushed/packed Oreo pieces (I ground them up in the food processor, about a sleeve and a half of the regular Oreos )

·         Cream the butter for a few minutes until it is light (I had to stop the mixer a couple of times to clear the whisk beater)

·         Sift in the powdered sugar (I just dumped it in, couldn’t find the sifter, didn’t seem to make a difference)

·         Beat until entirely combined with the butter

·         Add vanilla and milk, beat for 3 minutes

·         Add crushed Oreos and mix well to combine

**add more milk to gain a thinner consistency, more sugar and/or Oreos to thicken

It was a complete hit... however, if I were to make it again I'd want to double the recipe. This was just enough to cover the cake, and I didn't have enough ingredients to make more to pipe on decorations to have a more finished look.

Butter-Cream Frosting

Store-bought frosting is quick and easy if you don't have time to make your own, but if you do, you won't regret it, this frosting is delicious, I've used it on cakes, cupcakes, cut out cookies... you name it... if it is something to be frosted, this one will not disappoint. 

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup soft butter
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
• 2 tablespoons milk
• Food coloring of choice

Directions:

• Blend butter and sugar
• Stir in vanilla and milk
• Beat until frosting is smooth and spreadable

Trade Secrets:

Brown or Black Icing?

For brown icing melt unsweetened chocolate and mix into white icing

For black icing, add black gel coloring to brown icing, you’ll use less black coloring and the frosting will taste like chocolate

Dark Red Icing?

Make the icing a day ahead of time, the dark pink will darken over time and turn red if you give it 24 hours, also can use maraschino cherry juice as a liquid, will turn the icing pink and you can use less red food coloring.