UPcakes!

My church was having an activity - a birthday party for all the women - and they decided to make the decoration theme be the movie "Up."  Such a cute movie!  The main thing you have to know, if you haven't seen "Up," is that an old man decides to take the adventure he and his wife had always planned, but didn't get around to, and so he tied a TON of balloons to his house, and it flew in the air.

The woman in charge of the activity, asked me if I could make cupcakes for the event, and demonstrate how to do a frosting swirl on top with a piping bag and tip.  She thought there would be 40-50 ladies attending, but she called me the day before with the final count, and it was 90-100!  And so, I got to work, making 50 chocolate and 50 vanilla cupcakes, and a LOT of whipped vanilla American buttercream.  I left 24 of the vanilla cupcakes unfrosted for the demonstration part.

For the "UP" decoration, I made 100 circles in blue sugar paste, and mounted them on sticks of spaghetti.  I use spaghetti for two reasons: first, it is edible, so when a cute little kid decides to grab a decoration and pop it in his mouth, it is fine, and he will not impale his mouth with a toothpick!  Also, spaghetti has starch, and so when I brush my sugar paste decorations with a bit of water, and stick the spaghetti on, a bit of the outside starch melts in the water, along with sugar in the sugar paste, and it makes a totally tight fuse when it dries.  I have had problems with decorations falling off of toothpicks and florist wire, but spaghetti makes an awesome seal.  Once the circles were dry, I brushed one side with a bit of water and sprinkled on multi-color circle sprinkles.  Once that was dry, I had perfect little "balloon balls" that looked like the cluster of balloons from the movie.

Sadly, I neglected to take a picture of my display, with all 100 cupcakes frosted and topped with their toppers.  It sure was cute, and every cupcake got devoured!