marshmallow cupcakes

I volunteered to make 2 dozen cupcakes for my child's school fundraiser tomorrow night.  Since I'm looking soooo forward to warmer weather, I decided to make some fun flower cupcakes that are sure to be a hit.  I copied the idea from a Family Fun magazine a while back. They are so simple to make.  Here's what you'll need:

Make a batch of cupcakes and frost them with white icing when completely cooled.  You can go all gourmet and make some fancy cupcakes from scratch or use a good ol' box mix.  I'll never tell which method I used.  Although, I will say that this was done on a Friday night after working all week, so you can just guess.  You'll also need a big bag of marshmallows and some gumdrops.

Stand a marshmallow on end and use freshly washed scissors or kitchen shears to snip off a layer across the top of the marshmallow.  The scissors squish the marshmallow just enough to make a nice petal shape.  How thick you cut the layer of marshmallow will also determine how much the petal curls up.  I got 4-5 petals from each marshmallow.   Don't worry, any deformed petals can be quickly snarfed up by your little munchkins.  I found that I needed to wash the gooey marshmallow off of my scissors after every 3 to 4 marshmallows to make clean cuts.

Next,  take five "petals" and arrange them atop a freshly iced cuppycake.  This should be done while the icing is still sticky, before it sets up, so that the marshmallows stick to the cupcake.

Then add a dab of icing to the bottom of a gumdrop and stick it in the center of the flower.

Voila!  Now you have a beautiful flower cupcake that is good enough to eat (and impress a bunch of elementary school kids at the cake walk)! 

These would also look great using the strawberry flavored pink marshmallows or the pastel rainbow hues.   I also think these flower cupcakes would look super cute arranged on a fancy cupcake stand!  Thanks for looking!