DIY Cupcake Bar

Hi friends!

I had the opportunity recently to host a fun party and got to get a little creative. 🙂 My original plan was to do a fondue with different toppings and finishes, but the whole process of keeping the chocolate melted for hours was a bit daunting to me. After thinking about what I could do to create a similar effect, I decided to make a cupcake bar where people could choose their own toppings for a cupcake.  Perhaps buttercream icing is the new fondue? 🙂

I started by picking up several candies from the grocery store:

I used my favorite kitchen appliance of all time, the Vitamix to crush the candy.  I used the Dry Container and kept it on a level 3 for about 10 seconds for the Oreos and Butterfingers, which crushed easily.  The Reeses and the Snickers were a level 10 for about 15 seconds and the M&M’s and Sprinkles were left alone in their “natural” state. 😛

I was super excited to get to use my Washi Tape and some long toothpicks to make some flags to differentiate between the different candies- believe it or not crushed candy can be hard to tell apart. 🙂  I stuck with a gold and peach color scheme- I absolutely love these two colors together! They are so classy and spring-y. Wedding colors anyone? If I ever have a baby girl I would be tempted to use this color scheme for a nursery! Cute, cute, cute.

I hate icing cakes and cupcakes so I decided to bake both vanilla and chocolate cupcakes and leave them both un-iced.  I used this recipe for buttercream icing and was really pleased with how it turned out.  I simply left it in a bowl along with pretty cups full of the candy with the flags so people could make their own cupcakes with whatever toppings they chose. It worked out perfect.

I also did a cheese plate.  I’m going to do a tutorial soon on how I turned a slate tile piece into a cheese board, but for now here’s the visual.  I made a few sample crackers using some ideas I had read about.  One cracker was topped with gorgonzola cheese, an apple slice, a candied pecan (recipe here) and a drizzle of honey.  The other had my favorite cheese of all time with a smear of orange marmalade.  They were delicious!  I definitely recommend adding a little sweet with your cheese.

So there you have it.  The cupcake topping bar would be super fun for any event – wedding showers, baby showers, a gender reveal party (put blue or pink icing depending on what your guess for the gender is!) or just a random Wednesday. Why not? 🙂