How to Make a Customised Cake Board

First of all I am going to apologise for the lack of pictures accompanying this tutorial. I know it's always more helpful with pictures but this time I didn't know that I was going to post about it until it was done. Doh! If I make it again and have my camera handy, this post will be more colourful.

You start off with wrapping the cake board in a wrapping paper of your choice. Wrapping paper will be a good enough thickness to cover whatever colours are on your cake board. Be sure to put (paste) glue on top of the cake board before you wrap it, not just glue the ends down. This is to ensure that when you poke the holes (later) for the toothpicks, the paper doesn't come away from the board.

Next, measure out how many cupcake liners you plan to place on the board. I was making it for 36 mini cupcakes so, or me it was 6 down and 6 across so after placing one row, I use a marker to dot where the centre of the liner ought to be. Remember, the paper liners will be narrower at the rim after you put them in the baking tray, so you might want to make the spacing between the cupcakes narrower if you don't want a gap between them.

After you mark the centre, take a small phillips screwdriver and poke holes into the marked spot making sure you don't push too hard into the board and end up making a hole in your table as well. Next get your hot glue gun and a box of toothpicks out. Measure the toothpick so that the top of the toothpick after the bottom is inserted into the cake board, does not stick up beyond the top of the liner. Put a small drop of glue on the blunt end of the toothpick then insert it into the hole. Do the same for the rest of the marks and at the end of it you have a mini version of the Viet Cong's death trap as seen in Rambo.

When the cupcakes have been frosted, gently push them onto the toothpicks. Simple and beautiful.