Wedding Cupcake Favour Boxes

I was both looking forward to and very apprehensive about making these wedding cupcakes for a happy couple. These weren't actually for their wedding day. They were given out as gifts to their relatives on the day that they personally delivered invitation cards from house to house, as per Chinese wedding tradition. Luckily they had booked me early and I had a few months to source the materials. 

Chinese wedding cupcakes

I got the various sprinkles, silicone moulds and the impression mats from shops in Canada and the US cuz the variety we have here in Singapore just doesn't cut it. The customs officers at the Point Roberts crossing are just so used to people coming in to pick up parcels and leaving again in less than 15 mins, though I usually get a raised eyebrow or two when I say I'm coming in to pick up cake decorating supplies :P

cupcake army

Swiss meringue buttercream frosting

The cupcakes themselves were a mix of red velvet, chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, for variety. I put together a small sampler box for the wedding couple to taste too, cuz I'm sure there wouldn't be any of the favour boxes left for them to eat! 

#fridgesituation

I had to completely empty out two fridges in order to fit all 12 dozen cupcakes! It's a good thing that in my house, we always only cook enough for that meal and don't really keep any leftovers! (yep, my fridge usually only has ketchup and cold cuts in it). 

Now, for the cupcake toppers, I made 6 designs. The easiest of them all was the red heart made up of small roses. I used a Karen Davies silicone mould to make the hearts, and stuck them onto a white fondant circle with a little bit of water. 

heart roses and double happiness fondant toppers

The next design was the Chinese character 囍, for double happiness, which is always present in abundance at any Chinese wedding, representing love, happiness (of course!) and good luck. This one would have been straightforward to make since I borrowed a fondant cutter for the double happiness symbol from a friend. But it was impossible to tease, shake or even slam the fondant out of the cutter. 

double happiness cutter

So I resorted to just lightly pressing the cutter onto the fondant to emboss the symbol, and then cutting it out by hand using an Xacto knife! Of course this process took a lot longer because of all the fine lines, but at least I didn't have to hand-draw all the characters! I let the cutouts dry before painting them gold with Rolkem Supers gold dust mixed with a little vodka. Once they were completed dry, I stuck each character onto a red fondant circle with a little royal icing. 

Now for the "clothes" on the bride and groom, I rolled out the fondant and embossed the pattern on them using texture sheets from Autumn Carpenter. I used the swirly pattern for the bride, adding fish scale texture to the sleeves, and the paisley pattern for the groom. The surface was lightly dry brushed with Rolkem to highlight some of the detail. 

the happy groom

The groom's face was straightforward to make, with his hat being made in the same way as his clothes, with the addition of some gold dragée beads and a light green fondant jewel in front. The eyes and mouth were drawn on with royal icing, piped from a tipless piping bag. 

The topper that took the most time was the headdress for the bride! I stuck each teeny tiny bead on, one sugar pearl at a time, using 5 different kinds of sprinkles, red royal icing as glue and tweezers cuz my fingers are way too fat for such detailed work. 

fine sugar bead work on the bride's headdress

Thankfully, the roses were fast to make, using a silicone mould. The bride's face was piped on with royal icing as well. I like how cute she looks with a heart for lips. 

the dainty bride

It was literally a production assembly line frosting these cupcakes, putting on the toppers and packing them into boxes! The bride came an hour early to collect them, but I was still in the midst of placing the toppers on and packing, so I asked her to go for breakfast first! I left adding the toppers on til the last minute because i didn't want to have to store the fondant-topped cupcakes in the fridge. We all know that condensation happens when stuff is removed from the fridge, and fondant + condensation is not a good thing! Didn't want to ruin the details on these babies!

wedding cupcakes army

boxing in progress

wedding favour boxes

I'm so happy with how these turned out! The bride was super happy to see the cupcakes! And her guests fed back that they were simply too pretty to eat! Totally made my week and all that hard work worth it! Congrats to the happy bride and groom on their upcoming nuptials! 

all set to go!

Congrats!