August is TOMORROW, you guys! I’m not ready! August pretty much means that summer is winding down and that school will be starting again soon (boo; but also yay! Because I’ve only got one more year to go!). August is also the month where you try to do everything summer-ish you’ve procrastinated away until now. If you don’t have the time to take your kids fishing, make these cupcakes instead!
I’m trying to make more boy-themed treats (though trust me, I know that girls can and do enjoy fishing). I’ve had an overdose of Disney princesses lately, so I’m making an effort to go in the other direction for a while. These fishing cupcakes were so easy to do — I hope you give them a try!
Gone Fishin’ Cupcakes
A batch of cupcakes (I made mine from a box mix — doesn’t matter what flavor you use)
A batch of buttercream icing (my favorite recipes are listed here [1])
Blue food coloring
Pretzel sticks
Colored Goldfish crackers
A large star pastry tip
A small round pastry tip
1. Make your batch of cupcakes and allow them to cool entirely.
2. Make a batch of icing. Leave about a cup of icing aside. Dye the rest of the icing blue. I used two shades of blue, a lighter and a darker, to give the water more dimension. But this isn’t required!
3. Fit a pastry bag with the star tip — and pipe the blue icing onto each cupcake. If you use two shades of blue, fill half of your pastry bag with one shade and half with another — this will cause the two shades to blend and swirl when you pipe. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, see Sally’s great tutorial [2] at Sally’s Baking Addiction.
4. Place a pretzel rod on each cupcake. Using a different pastry bag fitted with the small round pastry tip, pipe a curvy line of white icing onto each cupcake — starting at the rod.
5. Place a Goldfish cracker at the end of your curved line of white icing.
That’s it!
Note: if you don’t own pastry tips, it’s OK! You can spread the blue icing onto the cupcakes with a knife — and you can just snip the end off of a pastry bag with a scissors for the white icing step.