Bridal Shower Cupcakes ♥

I am super happy today to be blogging about 52 cupcakes I made this weekend for a special lady's bridal shower yesterday!  I'm a little late with the post, but was busy busy making and decorating these cupcakes, and then of course celebrating at the shower itself ♥

 

 

 But here it is, and I'm so happy with how they all turned out!

 

I was asked by my friend (sister and maid of honour to the bride) to make cupcakes for the brunch which would be a vintage, tea party type brunch at an amazing venue - perfect for this shower.  She and the other bridesmaids did an amazing job putting together all of the decorations, games and food which made it a really, really pretty and fun bridal shower!  I think the bride-to-be had a great time!

  

Mostly I am so happy to be asked to make these for the shower.  It is the first time I have had the chance to bake SO many cupcakes for one event and was given a little inspiration from this picture which the sister and maid-of-honour showed me, giving me the idea of how the event would look and the ideas that they were having!

So of course, I got to work in my brain, planning out lots of different ideas, thinking about how I could make this work - in a Sew Lah Tea Dough way!  I didn't want to fully recreate these cupcakes, but instead, put a personal spin on these as well as matching the bride, the party itself and everything I could to tie in my cupcakes to the shower.

 

The bridesmaids had made some really amazing brown paper invitations with ribbon and button embellishments, so that was a personal inspiration that I knew would be used in the shower itself. 

 

So two different designs were born... 1, a pretty in pink look with similar tags stuck in, with lace and pearl inspirations.  2, a button inspired vintage feel design.

 





At the family Summer bash in July I made this cake - a nautical themed Earl Grey Tea cake with Orange Buttercream.  This flavour was a hit with young and old and so this was the requested flavour for the bridal shower too :)  Super happy to get the chance to make this cake again but I changed it up just a little bit.  But how perfect, a tea flavoured cake for a Sunday Bridal Shower Brunch with pretty tea cups and saucers!  I chose to do a lemon buttercream this time to match the citrus flavours you can taste in Earl Grey tea.  I chose orange buttercream last time to tie the earl grey to the marzipan to the buttercream but this time there would be no marzipan, only the cake, fondant decorations on top of the buttercream, so I chose a slightly different flavour.  (Just happens to be my favourite hehe!).

Now you know the inspiration for the designs, and the flavour it's time for the photos :-)

Fondant day was first!  I wanted to get the cupcake decorations made and ready so that on baking day they would have hardened up, meaning they (hopefully) wouldn't go soft once they were placed on the buttercream.  (*It worked!*) ... and it also meant that they were made and done ahead of time, giving me the afternoon before the party to really work on getting them baked and decorated already knowing what would be placed on top ... all I had to decide was the colour combinations.

Here are my supplies for fondant day!  I was excited to use my new Wilton fabric silicone mould which included great button shapes.  I coloured the fondant with a variety of colours, some bright, some more muted, generally going for blues, teals, browns, purples and pinks trying to match the vintagey-feel.  I also used my heart punch for some little love accents which I used on a few of the cupcakes.

I really LOVE working with fondant, creating new shapes, colours and generally just playing around with it all :-)

And for the other design I had been busy working during the week before to create the tags to go on top of the pretty in pink pearl cupcake. 

I used the 'Love Letter TW' - typewriter font and printed out various text on pink card stock that I would use to cut out with my tag cutter!  I chose to use 'I do', 'bride-to-be', 'love' and 'l&r' (the bride and groom's initials).  I also cut out brown paper tags in the same size that I would back the pink ones with.

I used a toothpick in the middle, and glued the two together.  I also then used stick on pearls to decorate the tags.  I had edible pearls for the cakes so thought this would match well. 

 

Fondant toppers made and drying out... Tags all put together... Doilies cut and made to make the lace-look cupcake wrappers and I was ready to...... BAKE!

52 cupcakes were baked, and I had bought 2 huge cupcake boxes from the amazing Golda's Kitchen which would fit 48 (so I guess that left over a few for the boys happily watching football until clean up time :-P).

I used almost the same recipe as last time I baked these cupcakes and so you can find the step-by-step picture tutorial there, but I've also included the recipe at the end of this post - it is so delicious, hope you get to try it!

I used a 1A large open decorating tip for the button cupcakes which I decorated first.  I wanted to make sure the colour combinations were working and they would sit well on the buttercream before the evening got too late!  I chose to use three buttons on each in complementing colours.  Here they are - feeling happy at least half of the cupcakes had worked out and looked good!

 

 

Next up was a 1M star tip for a swirl of peach coloured buttercream, three edible pearls dropped into the swirl and then the tag stuck in the middle.  I LOVE how the doily cupcake wrap matched the pink pearl feel and can't wait to make more cupcakes that will need a pretty lacey doily wrap :)

 



By the end of the night, I was tired and hungry so there's a lack of pictures here, but I knew I had to wait for daylight to get some good photos of the cupcakes so I packed them away for the night!

Until the morning... photo shoot time ♥

 

 

 



 

Lacey love cupcakes photographed and back in their box...

 

Time for the buttons! 

 

Everything packed up ... 2 huge boxes full of cupcakes!  Time for a quick drive up to the shower keeping fingers crossed that no sudden stops had to be made!  It was the first time transporting so many, so I got scared and sat in the back seat with them... All was good (*phew*) and they arrived at the PRETTY bridal shower!  There were some really beautiful platters to put them on, and they sat beside scones, sandwiches, croissants, yummy quiche, kringel, other sweets and an awesome donut tower!

 

So happy to be a part of this special bridal shower ♥  Can't wait for the big day!

* Keep reading for the recipe below *

 

 

For the cake... I'll give you a recipe that will make 16 normal sized cupcakes.  I don't think everyone making this will always want to do 52!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted buter
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup flour
2 1/4 baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup whole milk
3 tbsp loose Earl Grey tea

Method:

1.  Preheat oven to 350°F and line cupcake tray with cupcake cases.
2.  Grind the loose leaf tea (using coffee grinder, food processor or by hand) until it is in smaller pieces, but not quite a powder. 
3.  In a small saucepan heat the milk and 1 tbsp of the ground tea - warm slightly.
4.  Remove the saucepan from the heat before it simmers and let it cool, allowing the tea to steep.
5.  While the milk cools, cream the butter and sugar together in a mixer until it is light and fluffy.
6.  Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each one.
7.  In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and rest of the tea.
8.  Add half of the dry mixture to the batter and stir until combined.
9.  Strain the milk from the saucepan (leaving the loose steeped tea) and add to the mixture.
10.  Add the remaining dry mixture and mix until all combined. 
11.  Divide the batter between the cupcake cases - I found that using a small OXO cookie scoop it took 3 scoops to make a perfect size of cupcake, just to a similar height as the edge of the cupcake liner.
12.  Bake for 20 minutes (until light and springy to the touch, and when a cake tester comes out clean).
13.  Leave to cool completely before frosting/decorating.

For the buttercream frosting, with enough to pipe at least 16-24 depending on the type of piping (and the rest will always keep a little while in the fridge if there are leftovers... just another excuse to bake more cupcakes!!)

Ingredients:

18oz icing sugar
12oz unsalted butter
1 tsp lemon extract
2 tbsp whole milk

Method:

1.  Beat sugar with the mixer until it is a little soft.
2.  Add icing sugar, extract and milk.
3.  Beat together until combined, soft and creamy.
4.  Pipe with a tip of your choice and decorate as desired!

 

Enjoy baking these delicious Earl Grey Tea cupcakes ♥

 

Let me know if you have any questions about the recipe :)