Beach themed bridal shower cupcakes

Last weekend was the bridal shower for K, a friend of my friends L + E.  I was asked to bake cupcakes for the shower.  The theme?  Old school beachy (to match the invitations).

 

A bunch of ideas popped into my head.  I could make mini bikini sugar cookies to top the cupcakes.  Or make mini flip flops out of candies.  Or, I could use this super cute mini shell mold I had, and make marbled chocolate shells as cupcake toppers.  I ended up purchasing some plain white sugar shells online from one of my favorite sugar and royal icing suppliers.  And then - brilliance, if I may say so myself - I came up with the idea of graham cracker "sand."

I also wanted to make the colors of the cupcakes match the colors of the shower - a turquoise-y blue and a coral-y orange.  I couldn't die chocolate icing any color other than brown or black, so that was out.  But the vanilla icing?  I tried to make it a blue to match the colors of the shower and also look "watery." 

Now, I have to admit, I have used all of these recipes on the blog before.  The chocolate cake and vanilla icing were the same that I used for the mini Minnie Mouse cupcakes I made for my friend's daughter's 3rd birthday party in March.  Only this time I used blue gel color instead of pink.  The yellow cake cupcakes were my go-to yellow cake recipe -- a big honor since I much prefer chocolate -- and can be found all over the blog, but the recipe was originally posted when I made these mini cupcakes with lemon.  And the chocolate buttercream was from the yellow cupcakes with chocolate buttercream from last August.  But the final product was so different from any of the past treats, so I had to post it!

L had asked for 30 cupcakes, but I made 36 for them.  I made 9 yellow cupcakes with vanilla icing, 9 yellow cupcakes with chocolate icing, 9 chocolate cupcakes with vanilla icing, and 9 chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing.  All with sugar shells and graham cracker sand!