I'd been making cupcakes for friends' birthday presents for a while when someone commissioned me to make some cakes for their 30th birthday party 2 years ago. (I will blog about my other cakes another time). But it wasn't til some friends asked me if I would bake their wedding cupcakes that I really thought I might be able to make some money out of it, and so Made By Mich cupcakes was born. I've been "in business" for just over a year now, and it's only a mini business as I work full time, and I'm not financially stable enough to give it a go properly (one day...).
Anyway, I'll tell you more about the other cakes another time. So...
Ben and Leanne's wedding, April 2011.
The first wedding cupcake tower I made was for Ben and Leanne in Durham last year. Leanne chose a butterfly theme and had gold cases, lemon cupcakes with lemon icing and caramel cupcakes with vanilla icing. Leanne sourced the icing butterflies and those on wire from eBay. eBay is really very fabulous for cake decorations!
Ben's Grandad did the topcake which I added to the finished tower with butterflies,gold ribbon, and the brides bouquet was arranged in front. I was lucky enough to be a guest at this wedding, and the venue was absolutely stunning, and I was more than a little bit scared and honoured that my cakes were the focal point of the hall right in front of the top table! But it did look very lovely in the beatiful setting.
Susie and Tom's wedding, May 2011.
The next wedding I did was for more friends, Susie and Tom. Susie had a City Centre wedding and went for a chic black and purple theme. Susie chose chocolate cakes with vanilla icing, and Tom was more than a bit fond of the raspberry cupcakes with white chocolate icing, so I did those as well. I made them a topcake which was chocolate with a vanilla buttercream and raspberry jam filling, covered with sugarpaste. Susie topped the cake with a floral display we found on eBay, and found some lovely purple sugarpaste roses also on eBay, which saved me a job!
Usually I like to put the decoration on the cakes to the left hand side of the cakes, which you can see above with Leanne's butterflies and below with Jenny's cakes, but Susie was insistent that she wanted them on the top, and I think they do look nice after all.
Jenny and Pukul's wedding, November 2011.
The third wedding cupcake tower I made was for Jenny and Pukul, for their Indian wedding. The bride and groom both had ideas this time, which was new to me! Pukul proved very useful tho, as I initially had trouble sourcing dark blue cupcake cases. Pukul found some on the website I usually use! (In my defence they were out of stock at the time!).
Jenny and Pukul wanted fresh flavours that everyone would like, but also done so people would know what they were eating. In the end they chose lemon cupcakes with lemon icing and ginger cupcakes with ginger icing. One would be in gold cases, the other in blue.
The blue and gold were the theme of the wedding, and Jenny and Pukul brought a sample of their invitations to show me the shapes and colours.
From this, I designed a little blue and gold paisley shape for their decorations. I cut out 100 little teardrop shapes, pushed the tip over with the end of a paint brush and then used lustre dust with a drop of vodka to paint the gold pattern (the vodka evaporates!). I pushed a little dent with the end of the paintbrush into the middle of the shape before I painted them, then glued a silver dragee into the hole with some Squires edible glue.
I think the overall effect was a success, and the bride and groom were very pleased. Oh, and to let the guests know what they were eating, there were little cards out on the table to show which colour cases were which flavour. Jenny's Mum made the topcake, and again a floral display for the top, this time by the wedding florist.
I really enjoy wedding cakes, although they take a LONG time, the feeling at the end of the effort is all worth it. I've got two more booked in, but not til December this year, and May 2013...
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