Spring is in the air!

I made these for our ward talent show. I love this time of year when I get to decorate with Spring in mind! The colors are so happy!

The S-P-R-I-N-G letters are made with white chocolate. I melted it in a squeeze bottle, traced the letters on wax paper, let them dry then placed them on the cupcakes.

This jelly bean cupcake flower was so fun to do. I used the Jolly Rancher kind to get these fun colors. The yellow flower by the jelly beans was made by cutting a marshmallow in thirds and coating the sticky part in colored sugar. I used Dots candy for the centers.

The bows and loopy flowers are made from marshmallow fondant. I attempted to make my own. It worked but the pieces didn't dry completely like store bought fondant even though I did them 3 days prior. It was easy to make and work with though. I read somewhere that if your making flowers you can add gum paste so I will try this next time and see if it makes a difference. Here's the recipe for Marshmallow fondant:

16 oz marshmallows (make sure they're not stale)
2 T water
2 lbs powdered sugar (sift it to get out the little lumps)
1/2 c crisco

Coat the bowl of your stand mixer with a layer of crisco & attach your dough hook. Melt the marshmallows and water in a double broiler or microwave (I microwave) then pour into your prepared bowl. Pour in 1/2-3/4 of the powdered sugar & mix on low. As that gets mixed in, add the remaining powdered sugar. It ends up being like play dough. If it's too thick/dry don't add water, add crisco. If it's too soft add more powdered sugar. This recipe makes about 3 lbs but you can 1/2 it pretty easily if you want. Store it in a ziplock & it will keep quite a while.

For the rainbow cupcake I used the Airhead licorice pieces for the rainbow (it stuck in the cupcake really well) and piped on clouds.