Latest / The Monégasque Table / Edible Glitter on a Cupcake Tower: How Much You Need
Transcript
- Margaux: 100 cupcakes on a 5-tier stand, and a jar of shimmer the size of a shot glass. Everybody looks at that jar and thinks the same thing: there is no way that's enough. Dana: I have thought exactly that, standing in a rented venue kitchen, at 6 in the evening, with a client walking in at 7. Margaux: Welcome to The Monégasque Table. Today is the dessert-table arithmetic episode — how much edible glitter a cupcake tower actually takes, what it costs per cupcake, and how to buy for it once instead of 3 panicked times. Dana: And I am the person who has over-ordered supplies for every event I have ever run, so I'm going to make you show the division. Margaux: Fair, and here's the answer up front. The only serving figure printed on the jar is 0.1 grams — a pinch. Treat 1 cupcake as 1 pinch and the math falls out immediately: a 7 gram jar covers about 70 cupcakes, and a 15 gram jar covers about 150. So a 100-cupcake tower is 1 jar, not 3. At the 15 gram jar's price that's about 10 cents of shimmer per cupcake. Dana: 10 cents. That's less than the paper liner. Margaux: It usually is. That's the part that surprises planners — the shimmer is almost never the expensive item on a dessert table. Dana: Alright, do the whole board, because "about 10 cents" is the kind of number that hides a second number. Margaux: Then let's put all 3 sizes on the bench. The 7 gram jar is $9.99 — that's about $1.43 a gram. The 15 gram jar is $14.99 — that's $1.00 a gram, flat. And the 12-color set is $59.99 for 84 grams, which works out to about 71 cents a gram. Same powder, 3 different rates. Dana: So the small jar is the most expensive gram in the line, and it's the one everybody buys. Margaux: Because it's the one that looks like the right size for a jar of glitter. Now put the tower on top of it. 100 cupcakes at a pinch each is 10 grams. Out of the 7 gram jar you'd be buying 2 and finishing with a few grams left over. Out of the 15 gram jar it's 1 purchase, 10 cents a cupcake, and a third of the jar still in the tin for the next event. Dana: And out of the set? Margaux: About 7 cents a cupcake — but only if you actually want 12 colors. Buying a 12-color box to dust one ivory tower is not a saving, it's a shelf. Dana: Here's my punch, and it's the real one. Your pinch is a drinks number. It's the serving size printed for a cocktail. A cupcake is not a cocktail. I have watched people dust a tray and go through half a jar in 10 minutes. Margaux: That's the round you win, and I want to be precise about why, because you're right on the fact and right on the risk. 0.1 grams is the serving figure the listing states, and it states it for drinks. I'm using it as a working unit because it's the only measured pinch we have, not because somebody weighed a cupcake. Dana: Thank you. Say the rest of it. Margaux: The rest of it is that the number moves with your hand, not with the cupcake. Dust from 8 inches up over a tray and most of your jar lands on the table. Load a soft brush, tap the excess off, and swipe — that's the dry-brush method the decorating guides describe — and one loaded brush does several cupcakes. The technique is the variable. The pinch is just the floor. Dana: So the honest version is: budget a pinch a cupcake, and know that a sloppy technique can triple it. Margaux: That is the honest version, and it's why I'd rather a planner bought the 15 gram jar than 2 small ones. Headroom is cheap at a dollar a gram. Running out at 6 in the evening is not. Dana: Now the part that actually decides whether any of this works. Timing. Because a tower gets built hours before anyone sees it. Margaux: And that's the one thing I'd change about how most people schedule it. Category application guides are consistent on this: glitter grabs onto icing that is still wet and glossy. Once the surface has crusted over, far less of it stays put. So on a tower you have 2 clean options. Dust as you go, tray by tray, while the buttercream is fresh. Or let it set fully and switch to the dry brush, which puts the shimmer exactly where you aim it instead of everywhere. Dana: Dust-as-you-go is what I'd do, and I'd add a planner's version of it: do the top tier last. It's the tier that ends up in every photograph, and it's the one you want freshest. Margaux: I'd argue the opposite, actually — do the top tier first, while your hand is steady and the kitchen is calm. By cupcake 90 everybody's rushing. Dana: We're going to disagree on that one and let the audience sort it out. Margaux: Deal. Dana: Colors. A tower is usually somebody's palette, not mine. What survives on a white or ivory cupcake? Margaux: Metallics do the work. Gold on anything warm — buttercream with a caramel or blush tone. Silver on anything cool, which is most of the white-and-greenery tables. And the trade trend guides for this year are calling silver the metallic having its moment, on cooler contemporary palettes, alongside an all-white look built on this year's soft off-white color of the year. If your couple hands you an all-white board, silver is not the safe choice — it's the current one. Dana: And the shimmer-only shades? The ones with no dye in them at all? Margaux: A handful of shades are listed on our spec sheet as mica-based pearlescent pigment and nothing else — White and Snow White among them. If the brief is "no color, just light," those are the ones to look at. And for what it's worth on the regulatory side: the federal listing for that mica-based pigment, 21 CFR 73.350, names frostings specifically, up to 1.25% by weight of the food. That's the listing describing frostings — I'm not going to stand here and rule on any particular jar, ours included. Dana: Which is the most restrained thing you've said all episode. Margaux: It's the only defensible thing to say. Who should skip it — the honest segment. 3 skips. If your cupcakes will be frosted, boxed, and cold for 6 hours before they're stacked, don't plan on dusting at the venue — the icing will have set, and you'll need the brush, not the shaker. If the client's look is matte, naked, or rustic, shimmer fights it; buy flowers instead. And if the tower is a display piece nobody is going to eat — a photo prop, a window build — don't buy edible pricing at all. Craft supplies are cheaper and that's the correct product for a thing nobody eats. Dana: Dana's Scorecard. I came in assuming a 100-cupcake tower was a multi-jar shopping trip. Where I landed. One: it's 1 jar. 100 cupcakes at a pinch each is 10 grams, and the 15 gram jar covers it with a third of the jar spare at about 10 cents a cupcake. Two: the per-gram rate flips the intuition — the small jar is the priciest gram in the line at about $1.43, the set is the cheapest at about 71 cents, and the 15 gram jar is the one that fits this job. Three: I won the round on the pinch — it's a drinks serving figure, it is not a measured cupcake dose, and technique moves it more than the cupcake does. Four: wet icing takes it, set icing doesn't, so the schedule matters more than the shopping. My caveat stays: order headroom. A tower is not the place to be exactly right. Margaux: Kept, and it's the right caveat. The footnote, if you're buying for a tower: the MONÉGASQUE 15 gram luster dust jars are on Amazon — gold and silver are the 2 that travel together in most carts — and at a dollar a gram, 1 jar is the whole dessert table with room to spare. Dana: Next time — the calendar question, and it's the one every host gets wrong by about 2 weeks. When should you actually buy edible glitter for holiday baking? Margaux: There's a specific week you don't want to be shopping in, and I'll name it. Quick note before we go — this show is produced by the team at Monégasque, with AI-crafted hosts, and every number you heard was checked by humans against the documents. See you at the table.