Sweet Cuppin' Cakes!: A (Very Important) Graduation...

One of my favorite people in the whole word is my baby sister, K. We are 2 (and then some) years apart, as different as night and day, and despite this and the 200 odd miles that separate us, we are very close. So, naturally, K's graduation was EXTREMELY important to me. K had worked immensely hard, with intense determination, drive and passion to complete not just her undergrad, but her Master's degree in Accounting at UT. AND in a 5 year integrated program nonetheless. I couldn't have been prouder of my (sassy) baby sis. To make the occasion even more special, J, my sister's bestie, my honorary little sis and a welcome addition to our fantastic family, was graduating from UT as well! This was certainly, an occasion to celebrate, an occasion for a party, an occasion for... CUPCAKES!!!! (Duh, really, what did you expect?) My cupcake scheming immediately went into overdrive. These could not just be so-so cupcakes, they had to be the edible embodiment of such a milestone. Not only that, but there had to be A LOT of them (K estimated 60 would do the trick). Since I have pretty much perfected my basic cake flavor and filling options, choosing these was a no brainer. I would stick with some classic, well-received combinations- chocolate with raspberry filling, vanilla with lemon filling and strawberry with cream filling. Each cake would have the icing to match- chocolate fudge, vanilla and strawberry. Where my creativity really came into play was the toppers. Duff had some great orange and white sprinkles I would generously coat each top with, and I was also going to add some great fondant (again, this should be a palm to forehead moment) accents to each cake. I rapidly took myself to the Internet (you know what to do...) to research elements I wanted to incorporate. I finally landed on what I thought would be the perfect decorations for a burnt orange and white Hook 'Em affair. K loves my chocolate monogram look (let's face it, what's not to love there...) so I would have monogram Js and Ks with fondant flower and pearl sprinkle accents. I then was going to add some elements that were strictly UT- the burnt orange longhorn symbol, the classic UT symbol, the UT tower (with the number one lit up, naturally) and the McCombs School of Business logo (the school K spent many a long night in...). The flowers on the the chocolate monograms were to be the same color blue as the logo in the school (Human Ecology) that J graduated under. After printing some basic templates on the Internet, backing them up on cardstock and cutting them out, it was time to get to the real work! I mixed up copious amounts of burnt orange (I am still shocked I got the color right... it is a feat I will probably never be able to repeat), a bit of gray, black and blue and set to cutting. And cutting. And cutting. With the exception of the chocolate monograms, each topper was painstakingly cut out by hand with an exacto knife. This literally took me H O U R S upon H O U R S. Ah, the things you will do for the ones you love. I also carefully painted the year and the time on the UT clock towers. The time on each was set to either K or J's actual graduation time. It is this attention to detail my friends... By the time everything was cut, dried, transported to Austin, baked, filled, topped, and artfully arranged I had probably spent about 25-35 hours on these cupcakes. A labor of love for sure. To date, these are my absolute favorite cupcakes I have ever created. Not only because they were stunning, but because they meant so much to my sister and marked such an awesome occasion. Oh, and they were delicious (as if you even had to ask)!