Let's Get Smashed

I was originally going to have two tiny cakes made by a local bakery for the kids' smash cakes and then I saw this picture and fell in love with the rainbow sprinkles. 

Source: iheartfaces.com via nikinikinine on Pinterest

I remembered seeing pictures of a little girl's birthday party with DIY cupcake cakes on another blog. After a little googling, I located the original picture along with instructions on how to DIY their cakes. A trip to Target and $13 later and I had the ingredients I needed to make two cakes, with frosting, candy cupcake liners and sprinkles. My DIY projects don't always turn out to be cheaper than an in-store purchase so by all accounts this project was a success before it even got started.  

Source: flythroughourwindow.com via nikinikinine on Pinterest

Source: ohsugarcakes.blogspot.com via nikinikinine on Pinterest

The majority of the instructions were spot on and I was thankful...until I got to the shell liner.

Those candy shells dry ridiculously fast. As I was spreading my shell liner it started to harden and I started to panic. Since the cupcake pan can't go in the microwave I decided to make a double boiler in my sink to attempt to soften the candy.

If you're a quick thinker you know that this was a very bad idea. The candy just ended up getting very wet, which sent me into a greater panic. What a nightmare. A few paper towels and deep breaths later all was right in the candy shell world again.

The moral of that story is spread and spread quick.

My inner OCD kicked in when I was trying to evenly distribute my drying too god damned fast candy shell and instead of creating a smooth and even surface, I created a liner that looked like it had been etched out of stone with a chisel. Thankfully I learned my lesson for the second cupcake and the result was much smoother. The key the second time around was heating the candy for an extra 45 seconds so it was a bit hotter, and therefore took longer to cool and set.

{ frankenstein cupcake liner }

{ a much smoother looking round 2 }

Thankfully the outsides of both cupcake liners came out just fine. I was nervous that the uneven surface in the first one would make the cupcake sit in there funny, but it wasn't an issue at all. They only thing I didn't do well enough was tapping the air bubbles out. Some of my shell (on the outside part) is not smooth. Thank goodness, they're just going to smash them up anyway! I had to cut off the a few inches of cake that stuck out from the liners. Since I'm decorating the cupcakes at the studio today, this is the closest that they'll look to finished inside of our house.

The kids' pictures are later this afternoon. I can't wait to see how they come out! I'm hoping our photographer will email me a sneak peak pic tonight.