Emma's Garden

Last night at church, we had a dinner to celebrate the birthday of the Relief Society.  The Relief Society is the women's organization in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  In fact it is the oldest and largest women's organization in the world!  If you would like to learn more about it you can go here.

The theme for the night was Emma's garden.  Emma was the wife of Joseph Smith and the first president of the Relief Society.  The ladies of our ward put on amazing program.  We had a yummy light dinner of quiche, cucumber sandwiches, chicken salad sandwiches, various salads and fruit.

The decorations were really cute.  At each individual place setting there was a little potted flower for each lady to take home.  The stage was set up to look like Emma was having a garden party.  A small play was presented where each one of the presidents of the Relief Society visited Emma and told a little bit about herself.  In between a narrator spoke a little about what was going on in the world or about that era while the Young Women acted it out.  They even had a barbershop quartet which I think was everyone's favorite!

A couple of weeks ago, one of the ladies asked me if I would be willing to to dessert.  I was a little stressed out about the theme at first.  I wasn't sure what to do for a garden theme.  I ended up doing cupcakes and may have taken the garden/flower theme slightly overboard.

 I entertained the idea of baking cupcakes directly in flowerpots.  But I worried about how people would eat it and also the cost of buying 6o little flowerpots was just not in the budget!  So, I hand cut these wrappers.  I used a cardstock that I though looked like Terracotta and hot glued some flowers on to them.  If I had more time I probably would have added some cute leaf's.

This cupcake was a chocolate cupcake filled with chocolate mousse and topped with a chocolate ganache.  The flower on top I molded using candy melts.

These cupcakes were strawberry.  I made them using a homemade strawberry jam that my visiting teacher brought me one day.  I topped them with plain buttercream frosting and another molded chocolate flower.

These cupcakes were vanilla with vanilla buttercream that I tinted yellow.  I made the flowers with some marshmallow fondant and dusted them with some pink edible glitter.  I bought these cute cupcake liners - they are made by Wilton.

The main thing I learned while making 6o cupcakes?  I need more counter space and more cupcake pans! 

A special thank you to all the wonderful ladies who contributed to this night - it really was a lovely evening.