I did all the baking two nights before the party (or should I say morning…I didn’t finish baking until 2 a.m!), saran wrapped the cooled layers and stuck them in the fridge to stay moist until I was ready to frost. I didn’t want to frost and bake in the same day, which is why I stayed up all night to get the baking out of the way, the entire time ignoring Jake’s constant comments about how crazy I was and how I needed to go to bed NOW. Thanks for the moral support, babe!
The next day, I leveled the layers of the cake to make them flat, stacked the layers, and applied a crumb coat of frosting all around the cakes to make the rosettes stick. I then made a few batches of white buttercream frosting, and, just like the cake batter, used Wilton food coloring in Rose to dye the frosting three different shades of pink. Then, I loaded three piping bags up with frosting and, using a 1M star tip, added on the rosettes. I watched a YouTube tutorial for the rosettes and after a few practice ones, was pretty efficient. Rosettes are pretty forgiving, so when I messed up, all I had to do was wipe them off and start over. I began with the bottom layer, and basically squeezed frosting out in a circular shape, moving clockwise until I created a rose shape.
Even though frosting the rosettes wasn’t that bad on the difficulty scale, I do NOT want to see piping bags again for a very long time! Frosting two of those cakes burned me out for a while!
In addition to the rosette cake, which was for the guests, I made two giant cupcakes for Samantha and Amelia’s smash cakes. I used Wilton’s awesome giant cupcake pan to bake a strawberry-flavored cake, which I baked the same night/wee hours of the morning as the rosette cake. Needless to say, I was pretty sick of baking after that night!
The next day, I frosted the cupcakes with rosettes using the same frosting I had used for one of the layers of the rosette cake and then added some edible candy flowers. The edible chocolate wrapper is definitely my favorite part of the cupcake and took a few attempts to get it right! After a few fails on my part, Jake saved the day by making two successful chocolate wrappers for me. He melted down some yellow chocolate melts, coated the cupcake pan with Pam, painted the inside of the pan with the melted chocolate, and then stuck it in the fridge to set for a half hour. He then took it out, flipped the pan upside down, tapped it gently, and, like magic, out came the chocolate wrapper! I guess the secret ingredient was using Pam because every time I tried to get the chocolate out, it broke all over the place.
Like I said in my last post, I had all my slaves family members working non-stop to get ready for the party. My mom made these yummy heart-shaped brownies using my silicone heart shaped baking mold and drizzled white chocolate and sprinkles over them. In addition to some food-prep duties, she and my sister were tasked with taking care of the twins while I got the rest of the baking and party prep done. They were pretty exhausted at the end of each day!
A party wouldn’t be complete without cake pops! Fortunately, I have the BabyCakes Cake Pop Maker (yes, there is such a thing, as I had to explain to an incredulous Jake), which made the process a lot easier. Just throw some batter in the machine, let them bake for eight minutes, pull them out using prongs, melt some chocolate, dip a lollipop stick in the chocolate and stick in the cake pops, let them set in the freezer for a few minutes, and then dip the whole thing in more melted chocolate and sprinkles. I made the little cake pop stand topper using Photoshop.
Warning: The U.S. Surgeon General does not endorse eating any of the products at this table.
In a perfect world, I would have spray-painted the macaroons pink and gold with some edible spray paint I had, but I completely ran out of time. Sigh. The white chocolate bark hearts didn’t turn out exactly as planned either because I underestimated how big my silicone heart mold was, and the end product turned out way too huge to be appetizing. Who wants to eat an enormous, thick, heart-shaped piece of white chocolate? Well, I guess I do, but not when there were so many other sugar-coma inducing treats around as well. They looked pretty, at least! Fortunately, the silicone heart mold worked a lot better with the brownies.
Thank you to my sweet husband for making the heart pancakes the night before the party with me! We stayed up until 2:30 a.m. making these! The morning of the party, we re-heated the pancakes in the oven, stuck heart toothpicks through them two at a time, and topped them off with a raspberry. They turned out looking adorable. The best part is, Jake will now be able to make heart-shaped pancakes for me forevermore (hint, hint!)
In the background, you can see the adorable fruit skewers we made by placing grapes on wooden skewers and placing the heart-shaped pieces of watermelon my dad cut for us on top to create a little “wand.” I clearly got some good use out of my heart-shaped cookie cutters!
Not pictured here are the Nutella French Toast Roll-Ups (also made at 2:30 a.m the night before the party), which didn’t turn out looking so great, but were DELICIOUS! Just picture churros oozing with Nutella…yum.
My other favorites from the buffet table were the sun-dried tomato pasta salad my mom threw together and my absolute favorite salad, cranberry spinach salad with poppyseed dressing. Not as satisfying as dessert, in my opinion, but since people probably wanted to eat something else besides pure sugar, they were necessary additions. I would have personally been very happy with two buffet tables of frosting, just of the record.
Anyone want to come over for some lunch and dessert? We are STILL eating leftovers, four days later!
Even more party details to come tomorrow!
Lots of love,
You are wonder woman!!! This is amazing! if I ever need party planning tips, I know who to come to, WOW!