A Surprise Tea Party Bridal Shower

My lovely neighbour, five houses down, is getting married soon. Fun stuff. Her brother last August and now her! Excitement in that family, for sure. So her sister approached me for a special cake. In the shape of a teapot! Of course I said yes. She then asked me to make the cupcakes to go with. Again, a resounding yes! And THEN, I was asked for some tea sandwiches, you know, the little ones with the crusts cut off. Well now, how could I say no?

This is what I love to do. To have an event to prepare for and do what needs to be done! I needed to get organised as there were many components to this oeuvre d’art!

First things first, I wanted to make the royal icing flowers that would decorate the cake and the cupcakes. These need a good day to dry properly, so I made them on Thursday.

Also on Thursday, I went to my favourite kitchen store to get a ball mould for the teapot. Did I call ahead to see if they had it? Of course not. Did they have one on hand? Of course not. Could they order it from another store? Yes! When would it arrive? Tomorrow (Friday) between 11:30 and noon. Yay! Please do order it.

On Friday, I called the store at 11:30 and they told me that the truck had just arrived! Woot! Hubby, being the sweetheart he can often be, decided to go and get me the mould. He got there around 12:15 and was told that the truck was not yet “emptied”. He told them he’d wait. They told him, oh Monsieur, it could take at least an hour. Really?

I felt bad that hubby had wasted his time going there for naught and told him not to bother waiting around there. He had already passed up on his karate class for me, I didn’t want him wasting more of his time.

Feeling that the store would truly screw up my timing, I decided to go to plan B (which I originally thought I’d do but then changed my mind as it would be too time-consuming. Irony at its best. I used my stainless steel bowl as a vessel. The only bummer with this is I could only cook half the cake at a time! An hour for each half… I figured my time would be best served doing this. And a good thing too! The store didn’t call me to tell me my order was ready until almost 2:00PM!!! Pffft!

So, I made my cupcakes…

Then made my buttercream icing. My trick is to beat the butter until it is as white as possible. This way, when I colour it, I get what I want just that much easier!

Of course, under my kitchen light, the butter looks quite yellow! Oh well…

The theme was pastel colours so, because I intended the teapot to be pink, I chose a light blue, yellow and lilac as the three cupcake colours.

So pretty all assembled, don’t you think?

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I made the fondant handle and spout. Prayed that it would dry by Saturday morning and that it would fit well on the finished teapot!

I think it turned out pretty well, all said and done!

I assembled the cake and cupcakes…

Then realised I never took pictures of my sandwiches! My bad! (This is the best I could do!)

The lovely neighbours, Aalia and Fhameeda (the future bride) kindly permitted me to use their photos of the table

And the bride-to-be, Fhameeda

Thank you, ladies, for allowing me to help with your celebration!