Flower Cupcakes

As my oldest daughter turned two, in 2007, I was fresh out of the hospital after having her baby sister. With the help, and gracious offer from my parents to host her birthday at their house, my husband and I were able to throw her a great party; and we were able to make the sweetest cupcakes for her, too.

The theme to her party was simple, a butterfly garden. We had purchased everything in pink and green; the balloons, streamers, napkins, tablecloths, plates, utensils, servingware..everything! Hmm, now that I am posting these recent birthday blogs, I see I have an obsession with green and pink!

The cupcake idea was a brainstorm of my husband and mine after seeing candy butterflies in a cupcake book I bought for this occasion. But as we started to cut and place them on top, the flowers were naturally appearing and were prettier. Our oldest daughter loved them!

Cupcakes with Marshmallow flowers and green maraschino cherry centers

Here is what you’ll need:
A bag of regular sized marshmallows- cut into pieces
Colored sugar
1 Jar of green maraschino cherries, 1 half cherry per cupcake
1 Glass of water
1 Pair of kitchen scissors
Frosted cupcakes

As we all know, marshmallows are sticky, and we found to keep the scissors from sticking while cutting you should dip them in the water between cuts. This helps th scissors glide when cutting the marshmallows and keeps the surface moist to adhere the sugar.

Each marshmallow can be cut into 4 even pieces. 5 pieces are needed to make a flower.

Lay parchment paper over your work surface, so then marshmallows don’t adhere. Lightly coat with sugar over the top side of the 5 cut pieces*. Then lay atop the frosted cupcake in a circle, with the points in the middle touching and slightly overlapping making a flower.

Then place a halved maraschino cherry in the center.

DONE!

*Cut and sugar one set of marshmallows per cupcake at a time so the marshmallow doesn’t dry out and becomes less tacky to hold the sugar. If by chance you waited to long to sugar coat, dab some water on them.