Confection Chronicles: A Sandcastle Cupcake

So I have had so many ideas bombarding me, mostly cupcake ideas, that I have been forced to come up with a solution. In order to keep myself from baking cupcakes constantly I decided to make a couple of batches and then freeze them. That way I can take out one at a time and decorate them each differently. My husband thinks I'm nuts. But I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Anyways, stay tuned for the cupcake creations that I will be coming up with over the summer. With my freezer full of cupcakes and a couple buckets of frosting in my Refrigerator, I plan to do as many as I can think up. I need to build up my portfolio, right? So to start out, my oldest daughter Sariah came home from Girl's Camp yesterday and so I made her this...
It's a tomato soup cupcake, which by the way is totally yummy. Almost undecipherable from a pumpkin cupcake. Which my daughter thought it was and I totally let her think that until AFTER she was done eating it. It's not a common cake flavor here in the west but, I have heard it is quite popular in the south. I've come across Tomato Soup cupcakes several times while perusing the web and decided to try making some for myself. They are very yummy...Moist and spicy, like a pumpkin spice cupcake. I frosted it with double buttercream frosting and topped it in a mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon, white sugar, nutmeg, and cloves for the sand. I fashioned a castle out of fondant, rolled the pieces in corn syrup and then covered them with the sand mixture. The rest I just hand sculpted out of fondant. I made the cupcake wrapper below by tracing one of my filigree cupcake wrappers onto scrapbook paper.















Because I only decorated 1, I can't really say how it tasted with all the "sand" on it. My daughter loved it. Next time, I'll have to at least make one for myself.