My twins turned 5 this week and we are having a carnival themed birthday party for them this weekend. After all our work making rainbow cupcakes for their fourth birthday, I was in the mood for something a little more simple this year. I have seen "popcorn cupcakes" all over pinterest and they looked easy enough, so I enlisted one of the birthday girls to help me in the kitchen. These cupcakes are not only adorable, but they are simple enough to make that a child can help.
You will need:
- Cupcakes
- Frosting
- Yellow food coloring and water
- Small paint brush
- Bowl
- Mini Marshmallows
Use you favorite cupcake recipe and bake up a batch of cupcakes. After the cupcakes cool, add some frosting. Start twisting mini marshmallows to make your pieces of "popcorn." This is a great fine motor activity for little hands.
Place the twisted marshmallows on top of the frosting.
Be sure to cover the entire top of the cupcake with the marshmallows.
Add a few drops of yellow food coloring to a bowl and thin it out with some water. The more water you add the fainter the yellow color will be. You will need to experiment with this on some loose marshmallows. At first our yellow was too bright, so we kept adding drops of water until we got the perfect yellow color.
Give your child a small paint brush and the bowl with the thinned food coloring and let them paint the cupcakes!
My daughter was concentrating so hard as she worked on her masterpiece.
We printed out these adorable cup holders from In Place of Her Crown. How cute is that?
If you are making these ahead of time you can loosely wrap each cupcake in saran wrap and the marshmallows will stay nice and soft for a day.
📖 Recipe
Popcorn Cupcakes
Equipment
- Small paint brush
- bowl
Ingredients
- 12 Vanilla cupcakes
- 1 container Vanilla frosting
- Yellow food coloring and water
- Mini Marshmallows
Instructions
- Use you favorite cupcake recipe and bake up a batch of cupcakes. After the cupcakes cool, add some frosting. Start twisting mini marshmallows to make your pieces of "popcorn."
- Place the twisted marshmallows on top of the frosting.
- Be sure to cover the entire top of the cupcake with the marshmallows.
- Add a few drops of yellow food coloring to a bowl and thin it out with some water. The more water you add the fainter the yellow color will be.
- Give your child a small paint brush and the bowl with the thinned food coloring and let them paint the cupcakes!
Video
Nutrition
For more fun ideas check out Painting Popcorn.
Jodi Durr
Oh my goodness. This is such an adorable idea. I'm pinning it!
PlainVanillaMom
Those are adorable! We did a carnival theme for my oldest last year. I may just have to find an excuse to make these sometime though. So cute!
Mary Catherine
I've just pinned these! They look delicious -- what a cool idea to decorate the marshmallows to look like popcorn!! 🙂 We're going to try these out the next time we have a movie night.
Kate Grono
Wow they look great! Pinning