Sailboat Cupcakes

It's Memorial Day Weekend and a good time to make one of my all time favorite cupcakes, sailboats.  These sailboat cupcakes are a big hit all summer long, whether you make them in fun, bright summer colors, pastels or red, white and blue for summer holidays.   My mom used to make these when I was a child.  I remember taking them to nursery school and elementary school parties.  They are fun, festive and VERY EASY to make.


To make these cupcakes you need cake batter (boxed or homemade), buttercream or decorator icing, the egg shape cupcake pan, popsicle sticks, craft glue, construction paper or craft foam and either doilies or mini cupcake wrappers.

Make the cupcakes in the egg pans.  Be sure to grease and flour the pans so that the cupcakes come out of the shaped pans easily.   Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before icing them.    While they cool make the buttercream and the sails.

A hard picture to see, this batch of sailboat cupcakes
were placed on doilies and decorated with sprinkles, then
given a single sail, made from construction paper.

The sails are simple enough.  Using construction paper or craft foam, of any color you choose, cut out right angle triangles.  To get the size right, measure the top openings of the egg pan, you want the bottom side of the triangle to be a little more then half the length of the boat cakes.   Then measure the popsicle stick.  You want the height to be slightly shorter then the popsicle stick.   Glue the construction paper to the popsicle sticks.

You can make single sails or if you want to get fancy you can do a double sail.  Make two different shaped sails, a large and small one, just like a real sailboat.  You can mix and match the colors.

These bright colored sailboats were edged with
a star tip and given a double sail made out of craft foam.  

Ice the egg shell part of the cupcake and let it set in the fridge for about 20 minutes.  Then turn your cupcakes so they are "shell" side down, leaving the flat "bottom" as the top of the sailboat.   Since the shell bottom is already iced, you will want to set it down carefully on a doily or mini cupcake wrapper.  Ice the flat top of the cupcake and again let it set in the fridge, then decorate it.   You can add sprinkles to the top or pipe the edges of the boat using a star tip or a round tip, or come up with your own fancy way to decorate them.


Then stick the popsicle stick sail into the center of the boat.  Voila, you have a sailboat.
Want them to sail?   Instead of serving them on doilies, serve them on a tray covered in blue icing, or even better make a cake or rice crispy base and ice it so that it looks like water.   But remember the whole cupcake is iced, so if your not providing the eater with a doily or wrapper, make sure you serve them with a lot of napkins.