Ocean Swirl Beach Cupcakes for Your Next Beach Party

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There are so many reasons to celebrate during the summer months! Whether you’re hosting a summer birthday party or just having a casual get-together with friends this summer, a beach party theme is perfect. And if you’re searching for a cute dessert to serve at your beach party this year, these adorable ocean swirl beach cupcakes are the answer!

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If you need beach party cupcake ideas, you’re in the right place! Your beach party guests will love these cute cupcakes! The graham cracker crumb sand, combined with the adorable edible flamingo and cute beach umbrella make them the perfect beach party cupcakes.

In addition to the cute decorations on top of these beach cupcakes, they also have a fun surprise inside. The cupcake itself is a mix of traditional white cake and jello cake swirled to create the look of ocean waves! But the best part about these cute cupcakes is that they’re really easy to make!

Make Your Beach Cupcakes

These simple cupcakes use a basic white cake as the base. I used a boxed white cake mix to make things super easy, but you can use your own favorite white cake recipe of you want! Either way, you’ll begin making these beach-themed cupcakes by mixing up a bowl of white cake batter.

After you have mixed up the batter, remove one cup of the white cake batter to a separate bowl. Then, pour half a packet of blue gelatin into the cake batter and stir to combine. I used berry blue Jell-o for my cupcakes, but any blue tinted gelatin would work for this recipe.

To make the ocean swirls in your beach cupcakes, start by scooping the plain white cake batter into your cupcake pan. Fill each cupcake wrapper about 2/3 of the way full of batter. Then, use a small spoon to place dots of blue cake batter on top of the white batter. Using a toothpick, swirl the two colors together being careful not to over-mix the batter as you stir.

Bake you cupcakes according to the package instructions and allow them to cool completely on a wire rack before adding the icing. See how cool those blue swirls look?

Decorate Your Beach Party Cupcakes

Since I wanted to make this recipe as simple as possible, I also used premade icing. To tint your jarred icing ocean blue, use a couple drops of blue food coloring. Just remove the icing from the jar and place it in a bowl, then add food coloring and stir until your desired shade is reached. Then, spread the icing over the top of the cupcakes. I used my spatula to create a few waves in the icing by quickly moving the spatula from side to side.

To make the sand on top of your beach cupcakes, you’ll need graham cracker crumbs. If you’re hoping to make these cupcakes as easy as possible, just purchase some pre-crushed graham cracker crumbs from the baking aisle. I happened to have a package of graham crackers in the pantry, so I made my own by placing a few crackers in a zip-top bag and rolling them with a rolling pin until they were crushed.

Whatever way you go with your crumbs, after they’re ready, place them in a small bowl. To create the beach on top of your cupcakes, dip one side of the cupcake into the graham cracker crumbs. Press your fingers over the crumbs to make sure the stay in place on top of the icing.

Now it’s time for the fun part — decorating your beach cupcakes! To decorate my cupcakes, I used pink flamingo icing toppers that I found at Wal-Mart and cocktail umbrellas. You could also add:

• Candy beach balls
• Shark suckers
• Gummy starfish
• Gummy sharks
• Candy flip flops
• Swedish fish

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