Birthday Cupcakes

The second party for my mother-in-law's birthday was more of a lavish affair! She had invited around 80 people so I set to making cupcakes!  

I made chocolate and orange, vanilla, orange and lemon cupcakes, all iced with a cream cheese frosting.  I used a recipe my mum had found in a magazine.  It's a basic cupcake recipe but you add a syrup to the just-cooked cupcakes to give them added moisture! Yum!

The sugarpaste butterflies were deceptively simple to make - I coloured some florist sugarpaste in a variety of bright colours then stamped out the butterflies with a cutter and left them on a folded piece of paper to dry in a V-shape.  Then, with some white royal icing, I gave each butterfly a body and some decorative dots on the wings.

The party had a beach theme so I decided on bright and happy colours and a big flower for the topper cake.  This was a bit more tricky but, helped along by the amazing Alan Dunn and Sugar Flowers for Cake Decorating, I got there in the end!

Here is the end result, in situ.  We managed to get a few photographs before the cupcakes started disappearing!