I’m a sucker for a great birthday celebration – a party, balloons, cake, candles… ah, just thinking about it puts a smile on my face. But sometimes conflicts in the schedule arise and you have to miss a friend’s party. Boo. In this instance, I had to miss my friend Taryn’s party… and a white trash themed surprise party at that. Double boo. One my best friends, Taryn’s boyfriend, planned the whole party for her right down to her outfit. Brilliant! But he needed a little help with the cake. So, I figured a terrific way to still contribute to the party even though I couldn’t be there would be to bake the goodies for everyone to enjoy.
So, I decided to go along with the theme when planning what to bake. Jeff was expecting about 40 people at the party, so I decided cupcakes were a perfect solution. Taryn had one request though – she wanted a lemon cake with lemon icing. No problem! I would make a lemon cake for the birthday girl and then several dozen cupcakes for everyone else to enjoy. And what goes better with a white trash themed birthday party than pink velvet cupcakes, with hot pink frosting, tons of colored sugar crystals and pink leopard print cupcakes holders?!?... Nothing! Those were the winner!
So, I enlisted Jeff as my assistant because we had a lot of baking to do in a short period of time. The party was scheduled for that Saturday night so we planned to do the baking on Friday night. And since I wouldn’t have time to do anything the following morning it all needed to be started and completed in one night. My conflict with the party wasn’t just any average everyday conflict… I was going to the Emmy’s and had several prep appointments before the ceremony to help me get ready!
That Friday night my kitchen immediately turned into a hot pink mess. Since I make everything from scratch I had ingredients from one end of the kitchen to the other and more bleeding into my dining room. Plus, I needed to time everything perfectly. I had to make the lemon pound cake (same recipe I used to make the lemon cupcakes I’ve blogged about before) first, let that cool and then work on the pink velvet cupcakes. And with only one stove and a few cupcake pans it was going to take a while.
Luckily everything turned out tasting pretty great. Jeff got right in there and helped out when I needed him. It’s actually pretty amusing to see a 6 foot plus guy holding a pink velvet cupcake with hot pink icing and adding sugar crystals to the top. LOL! After adding the sugar crystals, I made cupcake toppers with the theme in mind. I used stickers, toothpicks and ribbon to create them that I had found at Michaels in the scrapbooking section. After we finally completed everything, we packed all the cupcakes in a cake box that I had also purchased from Michael’s and set them aside. The lemon cake needed a little more love. The icing was a bit of a challenge. So, I decided to refrigerate it over night and then attempt to frost the cake the following morning despite my busy schedule.
When I got up the following day and checked on the frosting it had hardened quite a bit in the refrigerator. It was made of confectioner’s sugar, vanilla, lemon juice, lemon zest…etc, etc. So, I defrosted it just a bit because I knew it would soften up as I frosted the cake. Once I had the cake frosted I put the whole thing in the refrigerator to harden. Since the cake was a thicker and more resilient pound cake, it worked.
According to Jeff and Taryn the cake and cupcakes were a big hit at the party! Everyone seemed to love that the theme was reflected in them! Yay! And Taryn loved her lemon cake! I’m still bummed I couldn’t be there, especially after seeing the photos; they are priceless!
Here’s a pic of the cupcakes. I apparently forgot to snap one of the finished cake.
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