Archive for the ‘food and drink’ Category

Alrighty! Here it comes, the best cupcake recipe for DIY wedding cupcakes. Thinking about making your own? Even if it is just for the bridal shower or engagement party and not the wedding day, here is how to create tasty vanilla cupcakes with orange buttercream icing. Kinda like a Creamsicle in cupcake form. Super yummy and perfect for an orange wedding! If orange isn’t in your wedding color scheme, no worries…just don’t add food coloring and they will be the same yumminess and perfectly acceptable wedding color, white!

DIY Wedding Cupcakes – Recipe

Ingredients:

• 3 cups flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups sugar (I used vanilla infused sugar – post on that coming soon!)
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups whole milk
• Cupcake liners (I prefer white for weddings)

How To:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line cupcake pan with the liners.
3. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. In another mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, usually about 4 minutes.
5. Add eggs one at a time. Mix them in well.
6. Beat in the vanilla extract.
7. Add flour/baking powder/salt mixture and milk alternately, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.
8. Divide batter evenly among liners, filling papers about 2/3 full.
9. Bake on the center rack of the oven until tops spring back to touch. Usually between 18-24 minutes. It depends on how full the cups are.
10. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

TIPS FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

• Use the largest eggs.
• Make sure you fill the cups evenly with batter mixture. If you don’t, the cupcakes will cook unevenly and some will be overdone and some will be under done. I recommend using an ice cream scoop to make uniform scoops.
• Remove the cupcakes from the pan immediately and cool on a rack. If they stay in the pan they will continue to cook.
• Make sure they are COMPLETELY cool before you ice them. The icing will melt and be really ugly otherwise!

Orange Buttercream Icing Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter at room temperature
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons grated orange peel
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 to 6 tablespoons orange juice
• yellow and red food coloring

How To:

1. In a small bowl, cream butter until light and fluffy.
2. Beat in the powdered sugar, orange peel, and vanilla.
3. Add enough orange juice to get the right consistency. 
4. Mix in two drops of red dye and enough yellow to get the color you want.

TIPS FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

• Write down how many drops of each food coloring you used in case you need to make more icing.
• Use a whole orange for the peel and the juice. Fresh squeezed orange juice will taste better and not have added sugar.

To DIY Wedding Cupcakes or Not to DIY Wedding Cupcakes

Heed caution. If you are thinking about making all your own wedding cupcakes, with hand decorations, this could be very labor intensive, so gather a crew! This is also fun just for a bridesmaid get together, bridal shower, or engagement party. Are you a DIY bride? What DIY wedding projects are you planning? Share your stories with all the DIY brides out there in our comment section.

Recipes, Photos, and Ideas from Alyssa Roehrenbeck, Art of Weddings Contributor