Help with my cup cakes please!!!

[MrsBish]

Hi,

My friend is getting married next month and wants to serve cup cakes and a drink after the service. There is a few of us who have offered to bake and decorate 48 cup cakes each. I did a trial run on Sat and didn't have much success, looking for any advice for the following probs -

The caterers have said that we need to use a dairy free icing so that there isn't any concern about butter icing going off and making people ill. I tried a thick icing sugar and water mix and it looked naff and didn't set properly. Even the next morning it wasn't set hard. Any ideas? I am wondering if circles of that shop bought roll out icing may be best.

The cake stuck to the muffin wrappers pretty badly and didn't peel off nicely, leaving you with a bit of a mess in a wrapper. How do we solve this one? Are the cakes best served the next day or something?

Also I don't want to be baking 48 cup cakes the day before the wedding, as it happens to be my birthday and hopefully I'll have other things to do! Will they be ok frozen and defrosted, then iced? What's the best timeframe for this. Could I possibly decorate then on the Thursday before the Saturday wedding? How long do they stay fresh?

Sorry to go on!!

have moved this to 'Food' Topic, but can't see how to delete this one

My dh auntie did this fir our wedding.
She froze the bases before the day so she could make in manageable batches. She used the ready roll icing cut into circles and decorated them a day or two before.cage then transported them in car from Dorset to Bristol on a hot day. No one got sick from the ready roll icing getting warm- or the butter cream icing inside the large top tier cake.
Never had the problem of the cake badly sticking to the paper tho.

what about using a dairy free margarine such as pure, instead of butter?

I think the thing about someone getting ill from the icing is bizarre! Butter takes an age to go off,its not a cause of food poisoning like say,soft cheese,or like warmed rice.You could sit a pack of butter in the sun for a day and eat it and be completely fine.The caterers are nitwits.

Ack just make buttercream, it'll take bloody ages to go off!

Im making fairycakes (sorry but I refuse to call them cupcakes, no idea why, sorry) for my sisters wedding. Bright red ones which will have name tags on them.

You should be fine freezing them, but only the bases, not the cream.

I have no idea about the cake sticking to the paper sorry, what recipe are you using?

BTW if the caterers are dead set on dairy free you can buy tubs of dairy buttercream but thats most likely going to get expensive!

meant to say Dairy free buttercream.

I agree that buttercream will not go off in a matter of hours. the sugar is a good preservative anyway.
some cases do stick, the thicker ones are better. Try asdas own pastel coloured ones, i dont have any problems iwth them, or it might be that you are slightly overcooking your cakes?

You can do lovely cupcakes with circles of ready roll icing. There are some good ideas on the wilton website. You could use an impression mat to make a pattern in the icing to texture it, then use a simple daisy or blossom cutter, cut out a couple of flowers and finish them off with a silver ball - v quick and easy!

Buttercream lasts in the fridge for about a week. You can also make it ahead and freeze it - have done this loads of times.

Am not sure why your cakes are sticking to the cases?

I can give you a recipe that I use that makes 12 cupcakes so all you would have to do is x it up by 4. These freeze well too.

Hi. I make cupcakes for a living. Buttercream will not go off - the caterers are talking rubbish. The cakes do freeze well but ice them the day before. You need to make a stiff buttercream if you want to pipe it or use ready-coloured fondant or sugarpaste icing in the wedding colours. I would highly recommend using an edible glitter since it looks really pretty.

IME, cupcakes stick because they're slightly over cooked. If they're muffin sized then 25mins at 140 degrees works perfectly for me.

Agree with everyone else that the caterers are talking rubbish. Real cream will go off and you have to be very careful with it but the EHO who did my home check said buttercream is very low risk. The sugar preserves the butter, plus butter doesn't really go 'off'.

A swirl of buttercream will be quicker than using a circle of icing and they should last well in an airtight box from Thursday.