Popcorn is the perfect salty movie snack. Popcorn cupcakes, for me, are now the perfect movie dessert! 🙂 I chose to post this today because it's rainy and dreary outside, which is the perfect movie weather! Now, tell me, what is the perfect movie? (The Lord of the Rings? Star Wars? Good Will Hunting? Ferris Bueller's Day Off? The Goonies? Twilight? Disney Movies?)
This is another brilliant idea from my Hello, Cupcake! book. The authors, Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, are definitely two of the most creative cupcake decorators I've seen. And, Alan's photography is just stunning!
I made these Popcorn Cupcakes about two weeks ago when some of Ben's students (college students) came over for movie night in the "man cave". We watched The Dark Knight (which could possibly be the perfect movie) and ate cupcakes, popcorn and Twizzlers!
It may look complicated, but the cupcakes are very easy to make. The only time consuming part was creating the actual popcorn out of the marshmallows, because you need to make so many of them! Since there were 6 of us, I only made about ⅔ of the original recipe.
You'll need two bags of miniature marshmallows. One white bag and one multi-colored bag. I found the multi-colored bag at Walmart for cheap. Pick out the yellow ones.
Line two cookies sheets with wax paper. Spoon ¼ cup vanilla frosting into a ziplock bag. Press out the excess air and close the bag.
For each piece of popcorn, use 2 marshmallows of the same color. using clean scissors, cut 1 marshmallow into thirds, crosswise. Arrange the pieces on the cookie sheet in the shape of a three-leaf clover, pressing gently with your fingertips to flatten them slightly (I didn't need to).
Snip a ⅛-inch corner from the bag and pipe a dot of frosting on one end of the second marshmallow.
Press the other marshmallow into the center of the cloverleaf arrangement; the frosting will hold the 4 pieces together. Repeat with the remaining white and yellow marshmallows until you have 225 to 250 pieces of popcorn (holy cow! I didn't even make half that number!).
Spread the tops of the mini cupcakes with vanilla frosting. Press 5 to 7 popcorn pieces onto the top of each cupcake. Any loose pieces can be secured with a dot of frosting from the ziplock bag.
Let the cupcakes sit for about 30 minutes before stacking them in the popcorn boxes or a bowl.
Penny Says: You can make this for a pretty reasonable price. Buy a boxed cake mix that's on sale to make the cupcakes. You should easily find frosting on sale, too! And, ask friends if they have cute popcorn tubs you can borrow (that's what I did!)
