Bridal Butterflies!

One of my very best friends - and really, Grad School is worth it even just for the friends - is getting married! In Australia...

Fair enough, she and her fiancé are Australian, and it makes sense to get married back home. I know it will be an amazing wedding, and I really wish I could go. But we cannot have everything we want in life. However, some of us did throw her a bridal shower today! And by some of us, I mean three did the organizing and most of the cooking, and I hosted. And made cupcakes! It was a lovely party, thanks to the amazing women present! Many could not come, but know that it was awesome and we missed you.

Now, as I have a 30 minute conference paper on saints and medieval marriage theology to write, I am posting about the said cupcakes as I wait for a decadent number of Kir Royals (and that Wikipedia page is an example of semi-useless to be proud of!) to clear my system...

First I made Hummingbird Cupcakes from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes cookbook: Coconut, banana, pineapple cupcakes. I left out the toasted walnuts as I am allergic. The Bride is not, but whatever, she loves me enough not to want me to die at her shower. 

Then I desiccated ca 3 mm thick pineapple rounds. It took hours longer than the recipe called for, but how productive could I be: desiccate pineapple, write paper, clean bathroom, do dishes, pilates...

To give the pineapples the right floral shape they are set for the final dry in muffin tins.

 

One of the ladies brought over her cupcake stand, and here I have added cream cheese frosting to the baked good.

 In case you were wondering where the pineapple flowers go.

I then added these fabulous edible sugarpaper butterflies from Sugar Robot off Etsy.

Shameless plug for Sugar Robot! Friendly, quick, lovely! Edible!

Same cupcake tree, two different lightnings and angles.

The Beautiful Bride! (with cupcake)