Shark and Beach Cupcakes

Apologies up front for the shotty photography. I am clearly in need of a better camera or lessons in how to use my camera!

I made these cuties for my friend Amy's bridal shower this past weekend. Luckily my mom was in town, so she helped me get them all together on time! Naturally, the idea came from the crafty Martha Stewart, which my even craftier friend, Nicole, had found. Nicole also procured the perfect wrappers and the decorations.

I decided to make red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for the beach cupcakes.

I used this great recipe from the blog Simply Recipes, which is actually a guest blog post from Garrett, who runs the blog Vanilla Garlic (should you have an extra 10 minutes in your day, search "Eat Beast" on the Vanilla Garlic site - you will cry you are laughing so hard). I have made this recipe before and love it. I think the cupcakes turn out perfectly: moist, fluffy, just the right amount of crumb. This time around it made 29 cupcakes and there was only enough frosting for about 20 cupcakes, so I am not sure what happened. We used crushed graham crackers as the "sand."

I used Martha's Vanilla Cupcake and Swiss Meringue Buttercream recipes for the shark cupcakes.

Nicole (painstakingly?) cut out all the fins from felt. 

The cupcakes were ok. They had a good vanilla flavor, but were a little dense. I did notice that they settled quite a bit during the cooling process. This recipe also made 29 cupcakes, but had I known there would be so much sinkage, I would have filled the cups a little fuller.

Now, let's discuss the Swiss Meringue Buttercream. If you read the recipe it says that it makes 9 (!) cups of frosting for 28 cupcakes. What? You have got to be kidding me. Who needs 9 cups of frosting? So I halved the recipe and had plenty for my 29 cupcakes. The recipe seems a little complicated, but once you get going, it really isn't. I followed it to a tee and it turned out perfectly. In the end, it was good frosting, but my mom and I agreed that it wasn't good enough to warrant all of the ingredients and time it uses. (If you care about your health, do not look at how much butter goes into this recipe.) I really expected it to be mind blowing, best I have ever had frosting. Sorry, Martha, better luck next time.