Cupcake Ghosties

From: Not So Idle Hands

Well, here is the second treat I made for my daughter's Fall Festival. I saw this a few weeks back on Martha Stewart's site, but just couldn't bring myself to pay tons of $$ to buy the fondant to make these.

Then, about 2 weeks ago, I found this gal and she had an awesome (and EASY-PEASY) marshmallow fondant recipe that turned out great. Plus, it tastes REALLY yummy!

So, in this post......you guys get a 2-for-1 tute!!

Lucky You!

I'll show how to do the fondant, even though Peggy does a great one on her site too.....but there were a few things I learned that might make your 1st attempt go slightly easier.

Start with:

• 1 pound of marshmallows-name brand is better since they are a little whiter
• 2 pounds of powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup of shortening (after I measured mine, I just kept it in the measuring cup next to me on the counter so it was easy to reach)
  
• 2-5 Tablespoons of water

Yup! That's all you need!

Start by putting the marshmallows in a large bowl (yes, very large) and adding 2-3 Tablespoons of water. Then, microwave 30 seconds at a time, till melted......stirring in between.

Once melted, add most of the sugar (Peggy says 3/4 of it, but it went faster to add almost all of it to the bowl).

Now stir it in the bowl till you can't anymore, don't worry if it's not all the way incorporated. Then, dump it all out onto a very well greased counter.

Then, start kneading it (once you grease your hands well), adding the rest of the sugar and most of the shortening as you go.

If it gets too dry and tears easily, just add a little water and knead it in.


After it's kneaded well, roll it into a ball and grease it up with the rest of the shortening. Then, wrap it in plastic wrap, then put it in a large Ziploc bag and let it rest overnight in the fridge. Peggy says you can also use it right away if you make sure everything was incorporated well.

The next morning, my girls wanted to "play" with the fondant too.....so I broke off 2 pieces and kneaded in some gel coloring and let them play with it like play-dough.

They LOVED it!!!! I'll have to remember that for later :)

Okie-dokey

Now on to the Ghosties!

Since Martha LOVES to post cool things, but not show step-by-step pics to help us make them......

I will!!! (Yay!)

Although,.... I decided not to use jumbo cupcakes and marshmallows to make them taller (I just envisioned HUGE ghosties toppling over from being too tall and under the weight of the fondant).

So, I made a bunch of regular and mini cupcakes (cut the tops off to make them flat). Then, I made a batch of butter cream frosting and glued them all together like this.

Now roll the fondant out on your counter, using cornstarch to keep it from sticking, as thin as you can without it tearing (you don't want it to be too heavy for the cupcakes). I broke mine up into 4 sections and kept the rest in the bag as I rolled out each one to keep them from drying out. But, if it does dry out a little, throw it in the microwave for 10 seconds at a time and knead in a tiny bit more shortening.

In the picture, though, I used a much smaller section then 1/4. Just easier to use a smaller piece for the pic, since I was doing it in my messy office with limited counter space :)

Then, I used one of my mixing bowls to help me cut out circles (yes, I'm anal and needed them to be perfectly round :) You can see me in the reflection taking the pic., trying to cut it one-handed.

See what I go through for you guys :)

Make sure you measure the height of your cupcake towers to see how big your circles need to be. Mine were about 3 1/2 inches tall, and I added an inch for the width, so I used my bowl that was 8 inches wide.

Then, just drape it over your cupcake tower, and arrange the little folds in the "sheet" of the ghostie till it looks right.

Since I was making yummy eyeballs at the same time, I just used the black frosting and piped on little eyes and a mouth (a spooky mouth, of course).

And....Ta Da!

Cute little ghosties for your next Halloween party!

Except, try as I might, I couldn't get mine to fly like Martha did.....maybe next batch.

These were soooooooo easy to do, I even let my girls make some with the left-over mini cupcakes (although, I cut the fondant too small. O-well, they were thrilled with their tiny creations).

These were a big hit and all 12 were sold by the time we got done getting our tickets (the line was super-long :) My kiddos were so thrilled every time they saw someone walk by with one, (so that's what i did to keep them busy in that lloooonnnnggg line) "Look, mommy, someone bought one of our ghosties!"