Making the Perfect Cupcake

I recently helped my friend with her son's rehearsal dinner. 

 Kathy wanted cupcakes for the dessert -

After much  cupcake searching I  found this darling cupcake on Pinterest to use as inspiration.  Kathy wanted it more festive than romantic so we made a few changes.

First things first! Making the cupcakes-

Using a boxed cake mix, follow cake directions but replace 1/2  of water for sour cream and add a little vanilla. This small change gives the cupcakes a great flavor and a little bit more density.

Place cupcake liners in pans. 

I wanted the cupcakes to be all the same height when baked.  Using a medium ice scream scoop is perfect.  Scoop cupcake batter into scoop then level it off  by scraping excess off using side of batter bowl. I  used 2 level scoops full for each cupcake.

Each cupcake came out uniform in height using this method.

Kathy loved the pretty lace liner look of the Pinterest cupcake.You can buy pretty lace liners for a pretty price so I improvised.  I bought some paper doilies at the Dollar Store. 

 They were 10 inches in diameter.

I cut the center out then cut the lace in 3 sections. Using one cupcake as a guide I wrapped it around cupcake.  Hold where the 2 ends come together, slide the cupcake out then glue, tape or staple ends.

Next came icing. I used my Mom's icing recipe.  She used to make wedding and birthday cakes on the side when I was little and always used lemon and a bit of almond flavoring in her icing which makes for a taste that everyone raves about.

I did a little video on how to ice the cupcake.  I thought it would be fun as I have not done a video before-(you'll see how very unprofessional it is especially at the very end as my friend couldn't figure out how to stop the video)

Using a big pastry bag and coupler add tip #2D

The little cupcake toppers were made earlier using toothpicks as a pick. My friend Gayle has a Cricut machine and helped me cut out tags.  We used a little flower punch for the flower and then tiny brads to attach them to the tag.  Gayle had this great little punch tool for making tiny holes in tag and flower-I need to get one of these! (I love having friends who have all the great gadgets!)  I had a tiny alphabet stamp set that we used to stamp the i do-

Here are the cupcakes in all their cuteness! 

 Kathy wanted a picture with the sign that I made for occasion (I will be doing a post on this soon)

Thanks to my sister (also a Kathy) for letting me make a mess of her kitchen -
(I had to travel to NM from Colorado for the wedding)

I was so busy decorating and getting food ready plus serving that I didn't have time to get great pictures of the set up but here are a few shots of the cupcake table

I recently did a little tute on the "You are the Icing on my Cupcake" Sign if you would
like to make one yourself.

These were so fun  and festive and made for a pretty addition to the dinner.

I think I am loving cupcakes now and would love to make some more! There are so many beautiful ideas on Pinterest- check out my board for a few!

Linking to some of these fun parties 

 Wow Me Wednesdays at Ginger Snap Crafts,   Savvy Southern Style for Wow Us Wednesdays, Whatever You Want Wednesdays, , French Cupboard for French Inspiration on Thursdays, The Shabby Creek Cottage for Transformation Thursdays, Kathy at A Delightsome Life Home and Garden Thursdays, My Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday, Tatertots & Jello for the Weekend Wrap-up Party ,Under the Table and Dreaming for the Sunday Showcase Party, Tip Junkie ,,Inspiration Friday, http://tatertotsandjello.com,  Finding Fabulous, Poppies at Play

, Pink Saturday
Mop it Up  Mondays, Met Monday
Swing into Spring

Spotlight Yourself

Works for me Wednesday 
Foodie Friday