Thomas the Tank Engine Cupcakes with Marshmallow Fondant

My 2-yo nephew loves trains, especially Thomas the Tank Engine and all his friends.  For his birthday, I wanted to make the cupcakes that his Mom liked, the same recipe that I made last month for the tie-dyed cupcakes.  However, for decoration, I wanted to do a train theme.  With my limited ability as a baker and a decorator, I know that anything 3D is out.  I googled for ideas, combined and simplified and came up with the design below, which I did mostly with the three round fondant cutters I have.  I also tried the marshmallow fondant recipe for the very first time to make these cupcake toppers.

MARSHMALLOW FONDANT
 16 ounces white mini-marshmallows
4 tablespoons water
2 pounds confectioners sugar / powdered sugar
1/2 cup Crisco shortening (for coating your hands with).

I halved the recipe and still had plenty of fondant leftover.

Microwave the marshmallows and water in 30 seconds increment, stir in between, until melted.  It shouldn't take more than 2 minutes.

Mix the powdered sugar in slowly, stirring at first, until too thick to stir.  Grease your hand with Crisco and knead the rest of powdered sugar in until the mixture is soft and pliable.

I thought that I would have to knead a lot, but it came together quickly enough.

I used Wilton gel colors to mix in and color my fondant.  It worked out well.

People claimed that the marshmallow fondant tastes better than store bought fondant, I didn't even taste test it since I don't care for marshmallow nor powdered sugar nor shortening.  However, my son did, and he seemed to not mind it.

I initially made a lot of gray and black fondant thinking of a different design, but that was tedious and took so long, so I decided on this design.  As usually, my son Ryan is my trusted judge, and when he declared that the design "looked really good Mommy," I knew I had a winner.

I didn't make enough green and blue fondant, and past midnight, I didn't want to yet start another batch.  I still had some yellow and red left, with tons and tons of gray and black, so Ryan said let's do Angry Birds cupcakes.  He gave me some ideas for the design, and he even cut out the hair for the head and the tail.  We ended up liking the Angry Birds a lot.

The mouth below is too big.  Make it smaller next time.