Wedding Cake

I had the opportunity to make a "wedding" cake and cupcakes for a good friend's wedding rehearsal dinner this past weekend. The order was for a rice crispy wedding cake and orange cream cupcakes with vanilla buttercream. I stressed over the cupcakes for so long. I made several batches of frosting and filling and did three different kind of cupcakes. I literally had a mix of reviews. Some people couldn't taste the orange and others only tasted the orange. The first cupcake was too spongy, the filling texture was not right and the Italian buttercream was too buttery. I also tried mixing orange curd into whipped cream for the filling, but it was lost somewhere between the cupcake and the frosting. I finally settled on one that I really liked.
I started with the filling. I had made an orange curd with fresh, locally grown oranges. I whipped up some shortening (not much) with a pinch of salt and added in a lot of orange curd. Then I thickened it with powdered sugar, much like a buttercream is made. I ended up with a really flavorful filling with the consistency of a custard.
For the cake, I took a vanilla cake recipe and substituted half orange juice concentrate and half whipping cream for the milk. I also added about 2 Tbsp of orange zest and a couple drops of orange flavoring oil. The cake turned out really good. After filling, I topped the cupcakes with a basic vanilla buttercream.
The highlight of the order, I think, was the gum paste flowers that I made for both the cupcakes and the rice crispy wedding cake. The cake consisted of two tiers of 4"thick rice crispy treats. I trimmed them with ribbon and made gum paste flowers to cascade down the front of it. The theme was to be silver and sparkly. I think I finally accomplished that with the help of some silver food coloring spray. I was really happy with the end result.