Another DIY Cupcake Resource

Back in June, Laura told us that she was contemplating making her own wedding cupcakes, and y’all stepped up to the plate with some great technical advice. The help that’s harder to offer, however, is the creative kind. Text is simply not the best delivery system for artistic advice.

diy-cupcakes
Photo by Ed Rudolf and Krystina Castella

Pictures and diagrams, on the other hand, are worth thousands of words. I recently received my copy of Crazy About Cupcakes and started baking with it. All I can say is YUM. The recipes and directions are easy to follow, and you’re not going to encounter any ingredients that are impossible to find — my only criticism is that the recipes don’t tell you how many cupcakes or how much frosting you’re going to get. Other than that, these are definitely beginner’s cupcakes. Yes, my cupcakes sometimes look a little gimpy, but I’m okay with that.

You can test run wedding cupcake ideas and recipes by Krystina Castella, the author of Crazy About Cupcakes, at her similarly named web site. There you’ll find a whole bunch of recipes, some discussion of technique, and a handful of decorating how-twos that are a few steps above “smear frosting on the tops” but not nearly as complicated as “make a fondant basketweave.”

Why wedding cupcakes, not wedding cake? First, you don’t have to worry about sizing a wedding cake based on the number of guests. One cupcake per person — and maybe a few extra just in case — should suffice. Second, weight is no longer an issue. Tiered wedding cakes can collapse under their own weight unless you’re using the right recipe, while cupcakes stand tall even when you’re stacking a smaller one on top of a bigger one.

cupcake-caps

Of course, if you’re lazy or no good with a piping bag, all is not lost. You can always make cupcakes in jars using the directions posted by DIY Bride or forget about decorating altogether and use pre-molded Cupcake Caps (as seen above) instead.

5 Responses to “Another DIY Cupcake Resource”

  1. Twistie says:

    I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m kind of in love with the one decorated with espresso beans. Mmmm…espresso.

    But that’s not only both simple and festive, it would be easy to adapt to a lot of different flavors. You could use small berries, chocolate chips, little candies…lots of different things would look pretty and be completely edible. What’s more, it could add an extra bit of flavor contrast. Just imagine a chocolate cupcake with a basic buttercream and topped with a couple lucious raspberries.

    Excuse me while I go mop up the drool.

  2. I like the double stacked cupcakes, Twistie. More cupcake is (almost) never a bad thing!

  3. yas says:

    these all look far too pretty to eat! love the colors.

  4. Nella says:

    Those cupcakes are amazing.I want some….