Fondant Rainbow Confetti Cupcakes

In honor of my daughter's 4th birthday, I made a really, really tall Rapunzel Tower cake (modeled after the Disney movie, Tangled).  It took a few days to make, and I will be posting pics and a tutorial of what I did and how I did it.

So why am I mentioning this?

Because I made a HUGE amount of fondant for the project.  And as if I don't have enough to do,  I decided to make a batch of cupcakes for my daughter to take to school on her birthday.  I figured that I could use some of my homemade marshmallow fondant to make some unique and adorable birthday cupcakes!

By the way, these cupcakes were a huge hit with the preschoolers AND the teachers.  The kids loved the colors and taste of the fondant, and the teachers loved that these cupcakes weren't a messy treat!  The teachers also commented on how tasty these were as well.

Marshmallow fondant is so incredibly easy, easy, easy to make.  Here's the recipe that I use from allrecipes.com.  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/marshmallow-fondant/

Marshmallow Fondant (also known as MMF):
Ingredients

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 (16 ounce) package miniature marshmallows
• 4 tablespoons water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 pounds confectioners' sugar, divided

Directions

1. Place the butter in a shallow bowl, and set aside.
2. Place the marshmallows in a large microwave-safe bowl, and microwave on High for 30 seconds to 1 minute to start melting the marshmallows. Carefully stir the water and vanilla extract into the hot marshmallows, and stir until the mixture is smooth. Slowly beat in the confectioners' sugar, a cup at a time, until you have a sticky dough. Reserve 1 cup of powdered sugar for kneading. The dough will be very stiff.
3. Rub your hands thoroughly with butter, and begin kneading the sticky dough. As you knead, the dough will become workable and pliable. Turn the dough out onto a working surface dusted with confectioners' sugar and continue kneading until the fondant is smooth and no longer sticky to the touch, 5 to 10 minutes.
4. Form the fondant into a ball, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight. To use, allow the fondant to come to room temperature, and roll it out onto a flat surface dusted with confectioners' sugar.

I don't necessarily refrigerate mine.  I sometimes wrap it, put it in a Ziploc bag, and just leave it on the counter if I need it right away.

Okay, so I had to first have cupcakes.  I used a funfetti cake mix, and colored it pink.  The funfetti still showed up in the cake.  So cute for a little girl's birthday!

Next, I had to prepare all the colored dots.  I rolled out several different colors of fondant, one color at a time.  I took a round piping tip and pressed out lots of small round circles.  It helps to dust the top of the fondant first (I use powdered sugar), then you can cut out up to seven dots before popping them out of the piping tip.  I used a toothpick to pop them out, and they all came out perfect (and I saved time rather than cutting and popping out the circles one at a time). I kept them covered with plastic wrap so they wouldn't dry out.


Next I took a large piece of white fondant and rolled it out.  I pressed each dot individually into the fondant randomly.  Then I took a fondant smoother and pushed down to embed the dots into the fondant.  If you use a fondant roller or a rolling pin, you run the risk of turning your perfect circles into ovals.  And it's not that difficult to just press down, anyways!

I then took a circle cutter that was roughly the same size as the cupcake tops and cut out the circles that will cover the cupcakes.  And this is what they looked like!

 And what a mess I made with the confectioner's sugar!

Once the fondant circles were complete, I took a little cream cheese frosting and spread it on top of the cupcake.  This is so the fondant would have something to stick to.

And then I dropped a fondant circle on top, smoothing it on to ensure good adhesion.














I really had a good time making these.  I actually like working with fondant more than plain old frosting now!

Here is the batch by the time I finished.  So cute and yummy too!