Ballerina Tutu Cupcakes

My niece turned 8 recently and I wanted to bake special cupcakes for her birthday dinner. We were not able to come home for her party last year, but I had previously created birthday cakes for her. First there was her 5th birthday party cake when she was into all things pink and zebra print!

Alexis cake for her pink and zebra print party

The next year I created a cake that was one of my favorite cakes I've worked on. She's quite the artist, and had an art party at a local studio where all the girls got to paint and make some projects. I loved making the fondant pieces and designing the look of this cake. I also made some crayon sugar cookies

Alexis' art themed party cake and sugar cookies

Last year I was gone at a work conference for her birthday, so I wasn't able to make her cake. But I did create some Elsa, Anna, and Olaf fondant toppers for Frozen cupcakes!

This year, I decided to do ballet themed cupcakes because that's a special connection she and I have, I used to do ballet as well and love watching her get excited about her recitals!

I wasn't sure what kind of ballet cupcakes to make, so I looked around online for ideas. I found an adorable tutu marshmallow pops on Pinterest that are pretty popular. I thought that rather than create the pops, I could turn those into a cupcake design.

The cupcakes were easy to decorate, I just piped on the icing as normal and then topped with a decorated marshmallow. The marshmallow serves as the tutu bodice and is easy to make by adding some sprinkles to a damp marshmallow.

Here's how I made the cupcakes -

Tutu cupcake ingredients:

• Cupcakes
• Buttercream icing
• Sprinkles
• Marshmallows
• Toothpicks

Tutu cupcake instructions:

• Bake and cool cupcakes
• Pipe icing on
• Dip marshmallows into water about 1/2 way down
• Roll marshmallows in sprinkles, lightly tap to remove excess
• Stick toothpick in marshmallow and stick on cupcakes