The Challenge: ship “pie” cupcakes to my dad, a math teacher, in Birmingham, Alabama without messing up the frosting. I found this solution from Beantown Baker and it worked pretty well.
Using mason jars: Cut cupcakes in half and put frosting in between. To avoid it turning into a jar of frosting, I piped frosting around the edges. The idea is to get frosting to ooze out so the cupcake sticks to the jar.
I added a dab of frosting to the bottom, too.
Jam the cupcake in the jar.
Mason jars are heavy and I didn’t think they were necessary for the Boston Cream Pie cupcakes. For those, I used plastic containers. Again, I cut the cupcakes in half. Then I added a full layer of pastry cream.
When all the jars are filled, you are ready to decorate.
For the Boston cream pie cupcakes, I just topped with ganache and put them in the freezer for about an hour and a half without the lid on. When the chocolate is hard, you can press on the lid. It worked perfectly. On one cupcake I had to press down pretty hard, but the others were perfectly snug.
For the Raspberry Pie cupcakes I used raspberry flavored buttercream and made dots of “raspberries” and then did a “pie crust”:
This cupcake is not falling out.
Wrap the mason jars in paper, throw in an ice pack and wrap with insulation:
The result: delicious. The best vanilla cake I’ve ever made. I’m pretty sure this was the recipe for our wedding cake, and I’m so happy I can make that now. I am loving the Sticky Fingers cookbook.
The raspberry pie cupcakes were a bit messy out of the jar. Probably best to eat them straight from the jar with a fork.
