Giant Cupcake Cake

This year for my nieces birthday she requested for a giant cupcake, a blue liner with hearts and sprinkles..what fun to make and I absolutely love, love, love the way it turned out!

I wanted to create something unique and different from the typical giant cupcake and found this cake created by Las Vegas Custom Cakes (www.LasVegasCustomCakes.com).  I used it as my inspiration piece and I just loved how it gave you a tiny peek at the actual cupcake like your would see on a regular cupcake.

I baked 5 cakes:
2, 8-inch rounds
2, 6-inch rounds
1, 4-inch round

Cakes stacked - imagining what the cupcake would look like

I used a 6 and 8 inch to build the bottom half of the cupcake and the remaining 8, 6, and 4 inch cakes to carve the swirl for the top of the cupcake.  The swirl could have been made shorter...something to consider if I would make another so it wouldn't look so much like an ice cream swirl.  We did get about 50 servings out of all these cakes.

Stacked and ready to be carved

Carved and Crumb Coated

The top half of the cupcake was filled and covered entirely with White Chocolate IMBC (IMBC with melted white chocolate added into it - yum!)  I had never carved a swirl before and it was a challenge trying to get the curve to work amongst the 3 tiers of cake - I must have turned the cake a couple hundred times picturing where the swirl was going and carefully carving it out - thank goodness for a turntable =)

The bottom half of the cupcake was filled with White Chocolate IMBC but the outside was covered in Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache since I wanted something more stable to hold up such a tall cake.

I carved the cake to look like a cupcake and then covered it over with ganache.

I then piped long ropes of ganache over wax paper, put them in the freezer for 5 minutes to set a little, then peeled them off and placed them evenly spaced around the cake to help create the creases of the cupcake liner.  I did try to pipe the ganache ropes directly on the cake but they turned out uneven and the angle was difficult to work with.

Once everything was set and firm, I covered the top part with chocolate brown MMF.

Boba tea straws were then inserted into the cake (they were used to support and hold up the weight of the top tier once stacked).

I then flipped the cake upside down, rolled out the blue MMF into a wide ribbon and wrapped it around the cake being sure to keep it all at the same height up off the base.  I did roll the MMF thicker than normal at about 1/4 inch thick.

Both tiers covered in White Chocolate MMF

Both tiers were covered and decorated in White Chocolate MMF.

White Chocolate MMF:  I used my recipe to making MMF with Candy Melts but replaced the Candy Melts with White Chocolate and added a 1/2 tsp of butter flavoring to it - delish!!!

Then to the fun part, adding the finishing touches.

The finished cake measured at 8 inches wide at the widest part and 12 inches tall.  It looked like a giant plastic toy rather than an edible cake =)  We all enjoyed it.  Happy Birthday Ally!