50th Birthday Wreath

My sister-in-law turned 50 on May 8th and I gave her black wreath (made out of cupcakes of course) to commemorate the day. The idea came from the book "Hello, Cupcake". The cupcakes are Betty Crocker Butter Pecan and the icing is Praline Butter Cream. The leaves are semi-sweet chocolate and the bow is a black satin ribbon.




First I baked the cupcakes according to the box.


Then I cooked the pralines that go into the frosting. Here is a picture of the pralines cooling on the stove. Yum.

And here is a picture of the crumbled pralines being added to the butter cream. Note: I added a little brown food color to the frosting so it would be less obvious beneath the chocolate leaves.

Here I am artfully (ha, ha) arranging the chocolate leaves on top of the cupcakes. To mold the leaves I stripped my pathetic mint plant of all its larger leaves, washed & dried them, and then painted melted chocolate over the surface. Once the chocolate dried, I pealed away the green leaf and was left with a pretty chocolate impression. I think I made about 100 of them. I sure do love my sister-in-law.

Again the finished 50th Birthday Wreath