Wedding Cupcake Tower

Last week I had the pleasure (or stress.. depending on how you look at it ;) of doing my second wedding.  The couple wanted a cupcake tower with a small cake at the top for them.  I was super excited because I love cupcake towers and this was going to be my first.  The order was for 200 cupcakes (whoa!) with the couple's monogram, 'M', atop each one.  The bride also wanted the glass slipper that the groom gave her when he proposed, as well as a tiara she had, incorporated as the cake toppers.

The biggest task for this one (aside from baking 200 cupcakes), was to make the 200+ 'M' monograms (always need extras).  Since the bride wanted the 'M' to match the font on their wedding favors, I chose to make them out of Wilton candy melts (sort of like chocolate but these were vanilla flavored - and yum!).  I had never actually done this technique but have seen it done many times and was excited to try it out.  Basically I printed out a sheet full of the 'M's, in the requested font, then placed wax paper over them and traced with a pastry bag full of the melted candy.  Then let them set up for about 20 minutes and carefully peel them off the wax paper.. Voila!  It's a pretty easy technique but very tedious (especially when you've got 200 to make!)  Also, some will inevitably break while trying to remove them from the wax paper.. one reason to make lots of extras.  I bought the candy melts in red, but since the bride's color was more of a deep apple red, I had to add a bit of black candy coloring to get the right shade of red.  I think they came out very elegant looking.. and looked beautiful on top of the cupcakes!

Here is the completed tower at the wedding reception!  The Cake is sugar-free yellow with sugar-free icing.  The cupcakes are a mix of chocolate and yellow, topped with whipped cream icing and a candy monogram.  I love how it all turned out - so beautiful and fit right in with the couple's oh so elegant affair!

..and here is the sign I made for the Cake table ;)