Cupcakes and Champagne: A Brunch Bridal Shower

The last few weeks have been a total whirlwind, between a week long work conference, some work craziness while I was home, and a crazy trip back to Boston for two bridal showers and a bachelorette party, things have been nutty!  My sister’s bridal shower had been preceded by months of emails and planning, yet somehow seeing 42 people actually standing all on my parents’ back deck was a little different then just seeing the number 42 on the list of RSVPs.. yikes!  We had a brunch menu with mimosas, and my mom and my aunt did serious kitchen duty (we did all the cooking ourselves).  Did I mention there were 42 people at the shower?!

For brunch we had:

swiss scrambled egg casserole: version with bacon, plus vegetarian and gluten-free versions

stuffed french toast casseroles: banana with nutella, strawberries and cream, pear and goat cheese

gluten-free stuffed french toast casserole: strawberries with nutella

my mom’s famous rolls (best thing, ever, and worthy of their own post)

layer fruit salad

melon ball salad

zucchini pesto salad

spinach strawberry salad

caprese skewers

plus TONS of cupcakes!

The bridesmaids all made cupcakes, and we had them for dessert, but we also had little cupcake boxes that held four cupcakes as our favors.  We personalized them with special “Kate’s Bridal Shower” stickers and ribbons, and all our guests picked out different cupcakes to bring home.  I spent all weekend worrying that we weren’t going to have enough cupcakes, but we ended up with the perfect amount.  People with big families got to take home a couple extra boxes, and we still had about 2 dozen leftover for us to snack on the rest of the weekend.

I was too busy during the shower and the prep to get any pictures of the food unfortunately, but when we laid out the cupcakes, a family friend told me to take some pictures before the cupcakes were all gone! 

I made these  mimosa cupcakes from the cupcake project.  I left out the champagne syrup because we had so much going on that I wanted to keep things simple.  I ordered the champagne flavoring off of Amazon for $1! These cupcakes were moist and delicious, and very creative.  I bet that the champagne syrup would take them off the charts in taste.

My mom made raspberry lemonade cupcakes.

and Italian cream cupcakes with toasted coconut and pecans.

My cousins made chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and coconut,

fun-fetti cupcakes with pink frosting (these were highly in demand.  Who doesn’t love funfetti?)

and lemon poppy seed cupcakes with lemon frosting.

I also made Jenna’s tiramisu cupcakes.  These were amazing.  The vanilla cupcake recipe all by itself will be my new go-to recipe.  I wanted to make tiramisu cupcakes, but all the recipes I found seemed extra fussy, and with all the other cooking, I needed something simpler.  When this Eat, Live, Run recipe popped up in my google search, I knew Jenna would have something that tasted awesome but didn’t take 15 steps and hours to make.  Please find time to make these the next time you have a cupcake craving!

I used the extra tiramisu filling to frost these chocolate cupcakes as well.  This filling can totally double as frosting, and these cupcakes were also amazing. 

Everything was tasty, if I do say so myself.  The 85+ degree heat had some of our frosting melting, unfortunately, but the cupcakes tasted amazing even if they were a little melted.

The shower was lovely; it was wonderful to meet everyone, and Kate got lots of lovely and creative gifts.  I was just thrilled that everything went off without a hitch; we had plenty of food and cupcakes, and everyone had fun and was well fed.  I was exhausted when it was over, but had a cup of coffee and a cupcake before heading off for the bachelorette party and my friend’s bridal shower the next day.

The weekend was a blast, but I needed plenty of sugar and caffeine, and I definitely crashed out on the plane on the way home!

 

What’s your favorite kind of cupcake?

My mom’s chocolate cupcakes with her special frosting are definitely still my favorite, but Jenna’s tiramisu cupcakes are a close second now!