A Cupcake as Giant as My Love for It

Several weeks ago, I wrote about a very wonderful, very happy, very terrific invention: the Wilton Giant Cupcake Cast Pan. Unfortunately, I don't usually bake, because I don't usually have people to share it with--my roommates always being on a "normal" work and sleep schedule, boyfriend far far away, and coworkers generally not disposed to eating baked goods at 3a.m. So, when I do have an opportunity to bake, I go for it. This weekend, since I had 3 days of doing nothing, I thought I would take a mini vacation to the Upper West Side to visit Evie. It was fun--her apartment is cute, her friends are cute, drunk Evie is cute--but most importantly, it gave me the opportunity to do something I've wanted to do since I saw an oversized package from Target sitting outside my door: bake a giant cupcake.

How did it turn out? For a first time, worse things could have happened, although I feel prepped for next time.


I'd envisioned trying to recreate the image on Target's website: chocolate cake, homemade whipped pink vanilla frosting, cheerful decorations. Unfortunately, Evie is less fond of chocolate cake, we decided I wouldn't want to whip my own frosting, and her yuppie grocery store was out of vanilla frosting (I know! I was veeery annoyed). We went with one box chocolate, one box vanilla (the pan needs about 1 3/4 boxes--we used the extras for cupcakes) and chocolate "funfetti" frosting.


The Giant Cupcake comes with instructions, although I also double-checked online for cooking suggestions. Because the top half bakes faster than the bottom half, people suggested filling the bottom half first, waiting 10 minutes, then filling the top half. This was mostly fine, although the filled pan is heavy, and manuevering a hot, heavy pan without burning yourself or spilling the batter is pretty tricky. Next time I would probably ask someone else to do it.

It cooked in roughly 50 minutes and then we gave it 10 minutes to cool before frosting. I think I would play around with the cooking times a little bit more. The bottom part, which was supposed to be vanilla, came out with a thick crust of cooked batter. It wasn't burnt and tasted completely fine, but asthetically, it didn't look like the golden goodness of a vanilla cupcake. I'm not sure if there's a way around this, but I think I might try some experiments. Also, it should cool for waaay longer than 10 minutes. Try 20 or maybe even 30. The cake was so hot on the inside--even though the outside was cool--that the icing kept sliding off while we were frosting it.

We decorated with chocolate frosting, white and pink piping, and funfetti--which surprisingly added a lot! I'm not sure what exactly I was thinking while I was decorating (except for GIANT CUPCAKE I WILL EAT YOU!!), so there were some weird Valentine's-themed swirls and spikes (Jaya's nice friend said she was impressed. It was one of the kindest lies about my cooking skills since the molten cake fiasco). While it wasn't super pretty, it was pretty impressive (the nice friend also declared, truthfully, that there are babies smaller than this cupcake), and, for drunk people, it was the Greatest Thing Ever. We feasted.

I'm pretty sure the Giant Cupcake is now gone, after it became my breakfast, lunch, and late-night snack all the next day, but it's certainly not forgotten...