Flower Cupcakes

So for Easter, I knew I wanted to do a dessert table.  I love desserts in general & being pregnant certainly hasn't curbed that for me.  : )  I started browsing Pinterest and my cookbooks for some ideas.  I saw these awesome flowers in the same "What's New Cupcake?" book where I found the duck cupcakes I made for Kaiden's shower.   

Here are the finished flower cupcakes.  I really liked how they turned out.  If you don't have the "What's New Cupcake?" book, just get on Pinterest & browse flower cupcakes & you can see them.  Or, to make things easier...here is how I made them.  : ) 

Since we have established that I am not a baker, I used regular Golden Yellow cake mix to make my cupcakes.  I then frosted them with cream cheese icing.  You could do vanilla if you like that better.  I just chose something light colored, so it would go with the "flower petals".  I then took a bag of mini marshmallows & cut each marshmallow in half diagonally.  I then split up the cut marshmallow halves into thirds & put them in my blue, yellow & pink crystalized sugar.  Next time I toss things in crystalized sugar, I will probably do it in Ziploc bags.  The bowls worked fine, but in hindsight, I feel like the bags would have been super easy & then I could just pour the leftover sugar back into their containers much easier.  But, for these cupcakes, I just tossed the marshmallows around in the bowls.  The great thing was (which I had my doubts about), the sugar stuck to the inside of the marshmallows because it was still sticky where it had been cut.  It really worked well for the "flower look". 

Then I started placing the marshmallows around the edges of the cupcake, working my way in.  I stuck with all one color on each cupcake, since this was my first time trying this out & I was slightly traumatized by my Pinterest fail with the cookie bowls.  Next time, I may switch the colors up once I get closer to the middle of the "flower" or put in some additional candies or something fancy.  : ) 

These are the finished "flower" cupcakes.  They really did turn out cute, much cuter than I thought I could pull off.  And it really wasn't very difficult.  If you want cupcakes that look pretty impressive (people really think you took the time to individually sprinkle the petals & are super impressed), these are good cupcakes to make. 

I'm sorry for all the pictures, I just really like these flowers.  : ) 

Check out my earlier Easter post to see the other goodies from the Easter Dessert Table. : )