Shark Attack Cupcakes

A few days ago, my sister and I attempted to make the Shark Attack cupcakes from my Hello, Cupcake! book. I have actually helped make a handful of cupcakes from this book so far with my friend Michelle, including our first creation, Panda Bears, then Sunflowers, a Pumpkin Patch and she did an incredible job with the Gobble Gobble Turkey ones by herself.

This was my first creation of cupcakes without Michelle's help. There are a lot of ingredients needed for these because there are 5 cupcakes that make up the shark attack scene: sharks, lifesavers, channel markers, school of fish and floats/buoys.

It took us over 3 hours to make 14 cupcakes. The recipe is for 11 cupcakes, but we made a few extra because we had enough ingredients.

As you may have noticed, there are only 4 different cupcakes pictured above. You may have also noticed how melty all of the frosting looks. That part may not be blatantly obvious, but the shark pictured above was the only one that did not fall off its base, most likely due to it resting on the lifesaver cupcake, ready to take a bite. Unfortunately, the frosting melted in transit to the birthday party we were taking these to, which made many pieces slide off the cupcakes and the frosting fall flat. Thankfully, there was already going to be a cake at the party; we just used it as an excuse to try a new cupcake from the book.

If you're curious as to what was used to make these, continue reading.

• Sharks - Twinkie (body), Famous Chocolate Wafers (fin), mini chocolate chips (eyes)
• Life Preserver - tube (powdered doughnut), red stripes (Fruit Roll Up)
• School of Fish - fish (Swedish fish)
• Channel Markers - marker (cake cone upside down, covered in corn syrup, covered with colored sugars, piped number in white frosting), light (Dum Dum sucker stuck into the top of the cone - not pictured above on top of cone, but behind the cupcake on the table because it didn't fit with the lid on for transport, then melted)
• Floats/Buoys - float (Dots candy stuck onto a pretzel stick) 

A few tips: We used powdered doughnuts instead of plain doughnuts covered in melted frosting for the lifesavers. I would not recommend this, as it was very difficult to get the stripes made out of Fruit Roll Ups to stick and stay. We also could not find spice drops and used Dots candies instead. These were extremely difficult to get stuck through a pretzel.

I hope to make these again and have better fortune, in that they won't melt in the car and instead be eaten as pretty as they were when finished.