RECIPE: Pentecost Flaming Cupcakes

Celebrating Holy Days with praise and worship is a given…and bringing that celebration home (and not just leaving it in the church parking lot as you leave after mass) is just as important as attending the Holy Day celebration.

A great way to bring that celebration home for Pentecost is to bring the fire of the Holy Spirit right into your kitchen with some flaming cupcakes. While your son may be disappointed that there are no pyrotechnics in these flames, I promise he’ll love the taste of the end result.

These make a great activity to do together as a family, and while the cupcakes bake you can read Acts 2:1-47 and meditate/share with your family on the importance of this day. Don’t forget the impact your Bible version may have on this passage!

As Pentecost is often called the birthday of the Church, baking some cupcakes – or making one large cake – become even more relevant. I first fell in love with this idea when I saw Kelly’s white flame cupcakes, and modified the design a bit to add more color into the marshmallows and icing. I’m so happy with the way they turned out! Noreen also came up with a great candy melt to make her flames – worth checking out.

WHAT YOU NEED

• cake mix (I used strawberry cake mix
  , but red velvet would work great too)
• white icing
• food coloring in red and yellow
• red sprinkles
• mini marshmallows
• kitchen scissors
• muffin/cupcake pan
• muffin/cupcake liners

HOW TO MAKE

• Bake cupcakes according to package directions, and allow to thoroughly cool
  
• In two separate plastic storage bags, mix approx. 1c mini marshmallows, 1/8 tsp (a few drops!) of water, and a few drops of yellow food color. Do the same in the other bag, but add the red food color. Shake to mix the color onto the marshmallows…it won’t evenly spread, and that’s perfect. Lay the colored marshmallows out on a plate to dry. See photo above. 
  
• Divide the icing into two bowls. Color one bowl red and one yellow. Ice the cupcakes with the two colors, allowing the colors to merge as you decorate the cupcakes. I did this by putting alternating spoonfuls of the yellow and red icing into a piping bag and piping small stars onto the cupcakes. Tip: Make the red one really red! I had to come back and add more coloring to the orange shown above to make it not just mesh with the yellow when they were in the same bag.

• Cut the marshmallows diagonally, and dip the sticky part of the marshmallow into the sugar sprinkles. Stick the “flame” into the icing and lightly pinch the tip of the marshmallow so it gives a more realistic flame appearance. Lick your fingers to get off the extra icing. Kidding. Not.
  

• Be creative! There’s no right or wrong way to do this. I made a few samples and played around with different styles until I found one I liked!