I have had the worst writers block ever about this blog post and I don’t know why. I hope this time I can break through…. It was a joyful project from beginning to end. Yes, there was the odd anxiety dream but only things that are difficult are worth doing.

It has been more than a month since the wedding, but being honest here – I could not think about cupcakes for quite some time. Starting off – congratulations to the happy couple. I think they pulled off their vision for a perfect wedding. The weather cooperated – with the tiniest of showers in the afternoon that was barely noticed by the people toasting marshmallows over a fire pit. Lovely bride, beaming groom and an epic speech by the father of the bride.

My thanks to the team who delivered Operation Buttercream;

• Carol, my sister in law who did stand out detailed work, cutting out the centres of so many cupcakes, then filling them with salted caramel or white chocolate ganache. And then using tweezers to place the tiny decorations. I do not have the patience for this – Carol was superb.
• Lisa, my artist friend who applied her artist eye to (36 x 3) 108 pink rose buds in varying shades of pink, plus extras for the wedding cake, plus piping a lot of leaves. I pass silently over the ‘roses not peonies’ discussion. What a good sport. Not to mention I said ‘do a design for the cake’ and handed her a notebook and pencil. No warning. And her inspired idea for an emergency repair kit.
• the Davinator, who made the display stand for the cupcakes (see photo below) which is the Colosseum of Cupcakes, supported me, turned a blind eye to whatever equipment and supplies I ordered and;
• Chris, husband of Lisa the Artist, who with the Davinator kept Team Cupcake fed, watered and working.

I want to thank everyone who had cupcakes forced upon them in the run up to the wedding, the coffee morning at the church next door, Christmas gatherings, family and friends – thank you for being enthusiastic consumers of cupcakes. If I had to guess who ate the most cupcakes I would bet on a tie between the groom and the father of the bride.

What did we deliver on the day?

• 3 dozen each of white chocolate ganache, salted caramel chocolate, carrot cake with orange edged buttercream and pink rose strawberry flavoured.
• 1 tier of fruit cake, decorated with roses. It was actually a Christmas cake made by another family member; our daughter in law’s mother who is quite the baker. We had two Christmas cakes for our family meal and I put aside Debbie’s cake for Faye’s wedding.

• a dozen each of vegan cupcakes and lactose intolerant cupcakes. I sought out a specialty baker, La Petite Bouche Bakery. Working with no dairy – so no butter, milk, yoghurt etc is a challenge. The results are good and much better than I could do myself.

How did we do it?

Planning and practice rule. Also having willing helpers. The wedding was on Saturday, here’s the schedule, starting a week before.

• Sunday – make 4 batches of plain buttercream, 4 batches of salted caramel and 6 dozen vanilla cupcakes as bases for the white chocolate and the strawberry buttercream,
• Monday – 3 dozen chocolate cupcakes, 3 dozen carrot cake cupcakes
• Tuesday – make white chocolate ganache and white chocolate icing, fill, top, ice and decorate 3 dozen white chocolate cupcakes,
• Wednesday (morning) – fill, top and decorate 3 dozen salted caramel chocolate cupcakes
• Wednesday (afternoon) – make deep pink strawberry flavoured buttercream icing, practice piping roses.
• Thursday morning – ice 3 dozen carrot cake cupcakes (these were a single rose piped directly on to the cupcake). The piping bags were filled with white icing, edged with bright orange. (See note below on cling film method).
• Thursday afternoon – make 3 shades of pink icing using the deep pink to colour it – this produced batches of icing that were tonally the same without trying to ‘match’. Then pipe approximately 120 pink rose buds. The men put us under pressure (promising cocktails and dinner) so we iced the tops white and then assembled with 3 rosebuds per cupcake and piped the leaves on 3 dozen cupcakes in about 45 minutes. We had arrived at confident.
• Rested on our laurels overnight….
• Friday morning – iced the cake, a crumb coat and then a coat of super white buttercream. Lisa did the the design for the cake, we watched a couple of Youtube videos about how to pipe climbing roses, leaves and stems and then freestyled the cake. Finished by 11 am!

My nightmares about working through the night on Friday came to nothing. The Davinator collected the speciality cupcakes in the early afternoon, Carol departed for the wedding with our in-laws, Chris and Lisa headed for home. We had a peaceful evening to relax and prepare for the wedding the next day.

Up early the next morning, breakfast, we loaded the car and arrived at the wedding in good order. The emergency repair kit was not necessary but oh so comforting to have.

And the rest was history.

Thank you for continuing to read the blog during Operation Buttercream. And sorry for the long hiatus while I got my mind around writing this final episode. Back to normal service, I hope. I’ve been cooking a lot and using AI with good effect to refine some of my recipes. Coming up – chocolate bread (non-sourdough edition), brioche rolls and hot cross buns.

Tags: buttercream icingcupcakesflower cupcakesoperation buttercream