It's an Icing Smiles request, so whatever this angle wants, she's getting - which is a funfetti Tinker Bell cupcake cake - and it's gonna be the BEST funfetti Tinker Bell cupcake cake that I can make!

I baked these things 3 stinkin times today, all three failed. Here's what I did - I took a 1/2 sheet pan. Put my bun extender in it and lined it with 30 cupcake wrappers. I though they would all bake together and you just pull them apart? That way it looks like a 1/2 sheet cake, but it's really cupcakes. I KNOW people do it this way, I've seen pictures... anyway my cuppies baked OK on the outside ring, but the middle ones kept coming out underbaked. They looked fine, tested fine, then fell and went gooey. The 1st one I baked for 20 mins. 2nd one I did 30 mins. Last one I did 50 MINUTES and the middle would not set up. By that point the edge cupcakes were hard as a rock.

It's not my recipe or my oven.

Am I overcrowding the pan? I thought it would just bake like a regular cake. Boy am I wrong - my regular 1/2 sheets are done in 20 minutes (commercial convection) and come out perfect.

So, please tell me how you do these? How many cupcakes do you normally fit in a 1/2 sheet baked all together? Or if you don't make a pull-apart cupcake cake, how many cupcakes do you normally get on a 1/2 sheet cake board and then do you just load all the gaps with icing? It just seemed like it made more sense to have it all bake together but maybe I'm missing something.

Thanks,

Jen

I recently had a request for a soccer field cupcake cake. I baked the cupcakes individually and used a small amount of icing on the bottom of each cupcake to hold them onto the board. You really have to "squish" the cupcakes together or you will use a tremendous amount of icing trying filling the gaps. It looks like I used approximately 35 cupcakes for a 1/2 sheet board.

I've never made these. Do you use cc papers?

Never made one, but we had a demo at an ICES DOS, and they used individually baked cupcakes in regular paper liners and squished them together into the desired shape as SSCountryDelights said, securing them together with frosting and slathered icing on top to fill in.

I used cupcake papers on mine.

I think you should still bake them using cupcake pans, then once baked, you put them on your board in the shape you need.

I love your soccer cake!

When I do cupcake cakes I always bake individual cupcakes then ice them to the board I plan to use and crowd them all together real close. Then I use my big icing tip (one of the only times I ever use that thing) and run long lines of icing down each row of cupcakes. I use my angled spatula to ice them all together and a Viva to get it all smooth and even. Then I decorate like I would a normal cake. I've never tried to bake the cupcakes together like a big cake. I can't help you there.

I have done this before when I worked at a bakery. I did it like SSCountry, but when I was lining the cupcakes up, I did them offset - so a row of 6, then a row of 5 nestled in tight to the 6, then another row of 6 etc. -does that make sense? And then you have to "glue" the cupcakes to the board with a bit of icing.

Maybe you could do the cupcake layer, then on top add a tiny little 2 tier cake for fun - maybe a cake that that hasn't even crossed this little girl's mind!

Haven't done it but it just occured to me you could maybe bake them regularly them immediately transfer into a shaped pan and squish them together so they set up the way you were hoping.

I usually do CCCs with the cupcakes I already have on hand. I just set them as close as possible together and I like to basically use the FBCT idea to get the icing flat on top then proceed from there.

Gosh I have done tons of these...many into shapes....guitars, cat in the hat, flip flop.

I can fit 24 on a quarter sheet board if I am making it look like a quarter sheet cake. Unfortunately, I do not get to do many rectangles. Always crazy stuff.

Regardless of the shape, I put a dab of butter cream on the bottom to "glue" the cupcake on the board...then make the shape. If it is a rectangle, I make butter cream triangles on the holes that are in between each cupcake to fill in the gap. Then go around the outside and then fill in the center.

Those are by FAR the cutest cupcake cakes I have ever seen. Good job guys!

Those are really cute cupcake cakes. You are so creative! I don't know how all the decorators come up with all those ideas. I like the foil cover paper you use. Mine all has floral designs. Where do you buy your foil paper?
Thanks,
Sandy

Nice! OK, well I will be baking regular cupcakes for this. Funfetti. If you knew me at all you'd know how funny that is.

(PSSST - I make fun of funfetti all the time.) LOL

Thank you all for your help - I meant to post this earlier but have been super busy.

My pull-apart cupcake idea bombed, so I ended up making square cupcakes in hot pink wrappers with scratch vanilla bean funfetti cake. They fit together really nice, I got 35 on my cake board. I kept it simple doing a ton of rosettes in different sizes and very simple fondant flowers.

Tinker Bell is a Decoac licensed character. And for a finishing touch I used just a touch of hologram dust to make the cake sparkle.

The family was over the moon and the little girl loved it.

Thanks for all your guidance!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=393444057375429&set=a.237353726317797.63322.229596827093487&type=1&theater¬if_t=photo_comment

Beautiful cakes in this post.

Lovely end result!

(But, I gotta tell you, I DID laugh when I saw the OP....)