Bridal Butterfly Cupcake Cake

A friend of mine, and coworker, asked me a few months ago if I would be able to make her some cupcakes or a cake for a Bridal Shower coming up for one of her best friends. (My co-workers have obviously been the on the fore-front of my baking business, and I love it and them for it! Thank you all) We had a few months to decide on what to do for the Purple Butterfly theme. Eventually we decided on a Butterfly cake made of individual cupcakes. This was going to be fun because I had not yet made a cake of cupcakes before aside from a turtle I made for Nephew E a few years ago and this would be a little different.


I started out by making a few batches of buttercream icing and baking chocolate, and then vanilla cupcakes. There was definitely a plan in the works when C asked me to make these because the fiancee bought me an airbrush kit a few months ago that I have been aching to try! The plan was to make the cupcakes and shape them into a big Butterfly and ice them individually instead of across all of them, in white buttercream. Then I would be able to use my airbrush kit to color the cake. I was able to use a few extra cupcakes in a box on the side and put some fondant on top with a cute little Bridal saying on it. The plan worked out accordingly but since I made the cupcakes, iced and airbrushed them a few days ahead of time I was nervous that the color would get moist and lift up a bit off of the cupcakes but it turned out well. Something I did learn was that after I airbrushed the cupcakes the color darkened after a bit. With all of my new gadgets I am happy to learn everything about how they work :)


When I arranged all of the cupcakes I used a star tip and chocolate buttercream icing to make the middle of the body. Next I used a rounded tip and made small swirls on each of the other cupcakes in vanilla buttercream to give it a fun look. After I let the icing set and harden a little in the fridge, and practicing with the airbrush kit, I started the cupcake cake.  They turned out really well, learned some tricks along the way but they came out very cute :) Enjoy!