Cupcakery

I've been away from the internet for the past few days recuperating from a round of stomach flu that kept me from feeling up to doing much more than watching the entire first season of Desperate Housewives. One morning over the last couple of days, I was hiding from the world in bed, when Johnny came to give me a hug and said "there could be cupcakes."
At first I thought I might have heard him wrong through the medication fog, but he went on to explain that he'd been flipping through one of the bridal magazines he bought me (which may or may not have been located in the room of the house where stomach flu led me to spend a lot of my time, which may or may not be how he ended up browsing it...). And in that magazine had been a feature on some of the best and most creative cupcake creations in bakeries across the nation. I'd been under the impression that he wanted a traditional cake, but seeing some of the cool cupcakes got him thinking that they might not be so weird, after all. We haven't made a final decision yet, but his interest piqued mine, and now that I can think about food again, I've had cupcakes on the brain.
While my fiance and the rest of my non-bride-world-residing friends and family members might think that cupcakes are a newfangled idea, I'm aware that they're one of the more well-known trends in weddings these days (even Betty Crocker offers up her advice on DIY-ing them). But I'm drawn to cupcakes not just because they're cute and not just because they're "in" -- I'm drawn to them because they're DIY-friendly.

From The Cupcake Blog

My Mom loves to bake and has a real knack for cakes, and together we'd planned to be the creators of whatever cake-thing we ended up with for the wedding. (Not that there are many other options in rural Western NC - we'd be going to Asheville to find the nearest professional bakery that does anything cake and wedding related, so non-pro is the way to go, not just for budget reasons). So far, we hadn't really settled on any definite plans as to what kind of cake, how many tiers, what size they'd be, how to make up the extra, and such. We knew that we were going to be limited in our abilities to construct a tiered cake (more than two tiers would have been rough), and we'd been trying to think of simple ways to decorate a cake that would look good even with it being an amateur creation. That's where the beauty of cupcakes lie, for me -- in how much easier it would be to pull them off well than to make a really nice, even if amateurly made, tiered cake. Here's my list of pros and cons from a DIY angle:

• Cupcakes show fewer baking mishaps than layer cakes. When one cupcake in a batch goes wonky or you mess up the frosting beyond hope, you're only out one serving.
• There's less of a process involved in making a prototype of your final version. I've been anxious about testing the stacking and sticking-together-with-dowel-rods of a tiered cake. It just seems so much easier to frost a cupcake, add your decorations, and know what you're going to end up with.
• I have a feeling cupcakes would be soooooooo much easier to transport. It just seems like there's less opportunity for cupcakes to fall apart in transit than there would be for a big cake (at least if you can't put it together on-site).
• With the popularity of cupcakes, there are lots of resources for amateur bakers out there to make really awesome-looking creations. Paper wrappers! Sugar pearls! Edible glitter! Decorative picks! (which you could totally DIY also, if you were feeling really crafty...)

From Rhubarb and Rose - these are gorgeous!

If we do decide to go this route, there'll be recipes and pictures on the way as soon as we gear up for some test runs! I love pictures of monochromatic cupcakes, like the white ones with seashells on the blue stand, up top. And there's something about the creamy brown chocolate buttercream frosting (like the ones above) that makes a gorgeous neutral tone and might be hard to do on a big cake.
I've been both a little nervous and a lot excited about our DIY cakeventures that we've been planning to have, and this possible new development just makes them all the more fun for me... and makes me hungry. And makes me miss Bliss bakery in Chapel Hill, and taking Friday afternoon adventures there.
I've been looking for some DIY cupcake inspiration from non-pro folks who like to bake and have done cupcakes for weddings. The Recipe Girl has a great post about pulling off a smorgasboard of cupcakes even if you're not a cupcake professional -- her pics look a-maaaaa-zing! And of course, there's always Good Ol' Martha Stewart.

Do you have a favorite cupcake flavor, or is there something in particular that cupcakes evoke for you? I wonder if everybody has a particularly good cupcake memory...