Fake Cupcake Tutorial

One of the many ways our business advertises is through display windows where in we show off different ideas for event planning and styling. On this occasion we were tasked with creating a non perishable display to advertise our dessert/candy buffet options. Candy in and of itself doesn’t expire, or when it does, still looks pretty.  Real cupcakes on the other hand, don’t hold up as well.  That left us with only one option, figure out how to make realistic looking cupcakes from things that would never go bad. Of course this meant a trip to my favorite hobby shop, i.e. the hardware store, for some supplies.

Supplies

Muffin pans
Cupcake liners
Saran wrap (optional)
Expanding insulating foam
Flat washers
Acrylic paint
Spackle
Piping tip and pastry bag/gallon sized storage bag (optional)
Tooth picks (optional)
Glass beads, glitter, fake fruit etc. (optional) 

 

Step one: Gather supplies

The beginning bit is pretty standard, cupcake liners (whatever colors you would like) and a muffin pan. I would stress that you use pans you no longer care about, the stuff gets messy, line your pans with saran wrap, or buy the disposable aluminum pans, if you can find them.

Put the liners in the pan.

Add enough weights to the liners so they sit on the bottom of the pan,  the weights have the added bonus of keeping the “cakes” from rising out of the pan as the foam expands. I used small pebbles, but flat washers would have worked better…some of the “cakes” sounded like maracas when we took them out.

Step two: Add ingredients

The foam comes in spray cans, often it’s sold in more than one place within a store…it’s called expanding insulating foam, and I’ve found it in electrical, adhesives, and garage doors…don’t ask why I found it in adhesives, I don’t know.  Anybody working on the sales floor of your hardware store should know what you’re looking for, if they don’t,  it’s purpose is to insulate awkward spaces, and it expands to fill the gap…..derp.

Fill each cup about half way, it doesn’t look like enough, but trust me, there’s a reason it’s called expanding foam.

Now walk away for eight hours, it takes this long to cure.

Step three: Remove “cupcakes” from tray

Remove “cupcakes” from tray.

Haha!  Just kidding, hopefully they’re not stuck…the excess foam came off pretty easily for me though.

Step three and a half: Reconstructive surgery (optional)

If you didn’t listen to me when I said trust me, and you added too much foam, like I did, this section is for you.

Cut the high dome off flat across the “cupcake” at roughly 1/8^th to a ¼ inch from the wrapper, take fine grit sand paper and sand away the sharp angles so it looks like a real cupcake… don’t tell anyone what you’re doing, so it looks like it was part of your plan all along, it worked out great for me.

 

 

Step four: Painting delicious

Using whatever color you want, yellow for vanilla, brown for chocolate, etc. paint your cupcake flavor on the exposed top of the “cupcake”.  Get creative, or don’t….the choice is yours.

Step five: Decorating
Now that the hard part is done, all there is left is to put the frosting on. The frosting is spackle, or joint compound, or drywall filler…it goes by many names. You can dye it by mixing acrylic paint into the spackle to make “flavored buttercream”, a tiny bit of yellow would be vanilla, pink is strawberry, and I used real chocolate powder and brown for the chocolate. WARNING: too much paint will make the spackle runny, just like milk does in real buttercream. Then you pipe it on with a pastry bag and tip, or just spread it on with a knife, however you would personally decorate a real cupcake.

 

Before the spackle dries, add your “sprinkles”, glass beads, glitter, whatever. My business partner asked to figure out a way to make the frosting so we could change out cupcake toppers whenever we changed the theme of the “event” so I put toothpicks in the frosting while it was wet, and when it was dry enough to keep its shape, but not dry enough to break the “frosting” I took them out, leaving a hole to put in new ones as we like. Once the “frosting” is dry, the “cupcakes” are done! Enjoy :)  
Thanks for reading, and make sure the check out Lyne’s blog for some of the other projects we’ve been working on and other great ideas.                                                                                   -Always, Fleur.