Beach Cupcakes (Recipe Re-Post)

It's really starting to feel like summer (almost officially here) thanks to the great weather we've been having lately. I know a lot of us will soon be heading to the beach so, I thought I would share these fun, beach inspired cupcakes. I made them last year for a little girl's birthday party and they were one of my first posts on this blog.

I had almost forgotten about them, but just recently Tasty Kitchen did a special section on cupcakes and highlighted my beach cupcakes in their post.

I do love these! They are so cute and the crushed graham cracker combined with the buttercream frosting tastes dynamite!!

Cuteness galore!!!

A close up of the little crabs and starfish.

and all those flip-flops!

All packed up and ready to go.


Ingredients:
This makes 12-14 cupcakes.

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
¼ cup whole milk

1-1 1/4 cups vanilla buttercream frosting
1 cup finely ground cinnamon teddy graham crackers
fondant decorations (see here for instructions)
cocktail drink umbrellas

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a muffin tin with 12 paper liners. Set pan aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides and beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Evenly fill the muffin cups with the batter and bake for about 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in pan 5 minutes. Transfer cupcakes to a wire rack and allow to cool completely.

Apply frosting to cupcakes. I piped them with a #1 Wilton's tip. Then carefully dip each cupcake in the ground up graham crackers. Top with a fondant decoration and a cocktail umbrella.

Source: Cake- Unknown (sorry this was from my very early blogging days), Decorations- Chef Mommy