Anniversary Party!

My good friend Stacey and her two sisters planned a surprise 25th wedding anniversary party for their parents and I offered to make a cake or whatever they wanted to have. First it was going to be 150 cupcakes plus a small cake just for Mike and Cindy. After a few weeks it became 75 cupcakes plus the small cake. Well, in the end I just ended up making approx. 84 (Stacey said 75 but I wasn't just going to make 75, after all, what kind of recipe turns out to make just 75 cupcakes!) chocolate cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream frosting (first time I made it from scratch and it was DELICIOUS!!!!!!), black accent frosting detail (Wilson piping frosting) and edible metallic pearls. Since I just made cupcakes I was able to bake them and decorate all in one day. It was fun and I hope it's not too long until I can make something else.

Any tips for piping would be great. I know I'm not awesome at it yet, but mostly just ideas on how to keep my hand from hurting once I stretch out my fingers would be helpful.


***Some members of the first batch got a little
under or over filled, but the next batches
were much better and more even.

***I was able to fit 35 in each cake box, and put the remaining ones in my cake carrier. Below is how they were displayed at the party for the guests to enjoy.


On another note, I have been doing a lot of looking at cookbooks (mostly baking stuff, of course) and I have a laundry list of books I want to get. AND I got 2 AWESOME bargain books at Borders; The Ultimate Baking Cookbook and The Cookie and Biscuit Bible. Now that I have a pretty good start on my baking supplies I figure I can really start exploring decorating techniques and perfecting my skills.

That's all for now! Hopefully I'll have something to report soon! :)