Tiger Lily Cupcakes with Orange Buttercream Frosting

I admit these were a bit of a failed fondant flower experiment. I had some leftover orange colored fondant and was briefly in love with the idea of making tiger lilies.

To round out the tiger theme, I made chocolate/vanilla tiger striped cupcakes to go under the orange flower blobs.

I think they look like demented crabs. They can join the demented goat lamb and demented pink bunny baked good club.

I formed the lily petals by rolling out the fondant and cutting out the petal shapes with a sharp knife. Then I rolled small pieces of the fondant into the stamen shapes and painted the accents with black paste food coloring. The round tiger pattern toppers were created with a round cutter and adding strips of black colored fondant.

These pictures remind me I really need to take a gum paste class one day in the future. As for the tast. The cupcakes and frosting were great but asking anyone to eat this much fondant is masochistic.

• Cover the inside of a heat safe bowl, a wooden spoon, your mixer’s bowl and the dough hook attachment with Crisco or shortening.
• Place marshmallows and water in the bowl.
• Microwave the marshmallows for 30 seconds at a time stirring the mixture in between with the wooden spoon.
• When the mixture is the consistency of Marshmallow Fluff, transfer it to your mixer fitted with the dough hook and mix in the powdered sugar one cup at a time until the fondant is formed..
• Cover your work surface with powdered sugar and cover your hands with Crisco or shortening.
• Dump the fondant on the sugared surface and knead the fondant adding more powdered sugar if needed to make it less sticky.
• Separate the fondant into different parts and color as desired by adding a few drops of gel colors at a time and kneading it in until the color is evenly distributed and you get the color you want. 
• Wrap each piece in plastic wrap until you use it.
• Wrap leftover fondant tightly in plastic cling film and store in a zip lock bag.