Another wedding planning project that Tom and I were recently able to cross of the list is the save the date cards. A couple of months ago, I had a baked goods inspiration for the cards. It occurred to me that I could spell out the save the date message in frosted cupcakes, and then use a picture of the cupcakes on the cards.Even though I came up with this idea a while ago, I didn't find the time to actually undertake the project until President's Day weekend. I planned out the message I wanted for the cards and determined that I needed 24 large cupcakes for the main message ("save the date" and the actual date), and another 28 mini cupcakes to spell out the wedding location (hotel name and city). I decided that the color scheme would be pink and green, both because those are my two favorite colors, and because the room where our wedding reception is being held happens to be painted pink and green.
As I started baking the cupcakes, mixing up two batches of Restaurant Eve cake batter, the realization suddenly dawned on me that I should have just purchased some cake mix or something instead of going to the time and effort of actually making good cupcakes. But I suppose that my disdain for cake mixes run deep. In any case, I would have made my own frosting, because that frosting-like stuff that comes in a can is just horrifying.
I made two batches of frosting, dying one pink and one leaf green. I decided that the large cupcakes would have a pink frosting base with green letters and vice versa for the mini-cupcakes. I wanted to make the base frosting as smooth and flat as possible so that the letters would be both easier to pipe on and easier to read. To get the smooth frosting base, I used an ice cream scoop to parcel out equal hemispheres of frosting on each cupcake, waited a few minutes for the frosting to crust over, and then I used a paper towel to flatten the frosting and pat it out into a perfectly flat, attractive circle. (The paper towel won't stick to the frosting whereas your hand will.)
I wanted to take a picture of the cupcakes in natural light, so I took them out into the backyard and laid them out on the patio dining table (the weather conditions were ideal for this project -- cold, but sunny and windless). The picture above is a cropped version of the final photo, without the mini cupcakes underneath spelling out the location.
I designed a card around the photo at tinyprints.com, and I've been holding off on publishing this post until all of the cards were sent out... Which I can finally say is done!Recipe: Restaurant Eve's Cake from the Washington Post, April 23, 2006.
Previous Posts:
- "Alexander's Birthday Party," September 21, 2008.
- "Think Pink!," November 15, 2008.
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