Gigantic Fruit Cupcake Tower

I received an almost frantic call from Renee a few weeks back. Renee was having a luau themed wedding reception and wanted a unique "cake" for the party. She had this brilliant idea for a cupcake tower that no one in the area would agree to make (I think she said that she called between 7-10 bakers and cakers). She sent me a picture of a cupcake tower covered with fruit in between buttercream covered cupcakes and I agreed to take on the challenge. After I hung up, I realized I had no idea how to get this done, which is why I created the mini-fruit cupcake tower a bit ago. It was definitely a challenge but totally worth it in the end. It's amazing how fast 8 hours flies when you're on a time crunch!

This cupcake tower holds over 6lbs of strawberries, 2lbs of grapes, 1lb of blueberries and two fresh pineapples. There are 46 large cupcakes and 23 mini-cupcakes. Half of the cupcakes were vanilla cupcakes with buttercream and half are red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. The tower stood over 28inches tall and so I can only imagine how much this weighs (obviously, I couldn't carry this monstronsity!). My man-friend nearly passed out from the pressure of driving an hour away with me and the cupcake tower in the back along with having to carry it through the house to the set up site. I rewarded him with his choice of restaurant for dinner :) I wish I could've stayed for the reception because Renee and her guests were seriously having a party! It was my idea of a wedding reception! Renee's reaction was totally worth the work because she was more thrilled than me in a free-candy shop (and I love me some candy!). I'm so glad I helped alleviate her stress at her wedding reception and make the cake that she wanted.

After washing all of the fruit by hand, I sprayed the fruit with sugar water so that when biting into the fruit, there's a bit of extra sweetness. Yummy!