Easy to make “fishing” themed cupcakes made with Swedish fish and pretzel rods. Make your own or simply decorate store bought cupcakes.
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I recently got to make these super cute, super easy cupcakes for my little cousin Foster’s third birthday party. The party was fishing themed and his mom saw these cupcakes on Pinterest and asked me to make them but with gummy fish instead.
How to make fishing cupcakes:
- The cupcakes are chocolate cupcakes made from a cake mix, bake according to the box’s directions or use your favorite cupcake recipe.
- Make 1 batch American buttercream (recipe below)
- Save back about 3/4 cup of the uncolored/white buttercream for the fishing line.
- Tint remainder of the frosting blue.
- Frost the cooled cupcakes with blue frosting using a Wilton #12 tip. You can also spread the frosting onto the cupcake, but I feel piping it gives a cleaner finish.
- Pipe the fishing line with a Wilton #1 tip. Pipe the fishing line on the top of the cupcake before adding the pretzel and the fish. I like using a piping tip because I think it makes for cleaner lines, but you could just snip the end off your piping bag (a very very small snip).
- Use pretzel rods for the fishing rods and Swedish Fish for the fish.
To make this project even easier, you could buy plain blue frosted cupcakes from the grocery store and add your own pretzels and fish.
American Buttercream
Equipment
- Mixer
Ingredients
- 2 cups butter softened
- 8 cups powdered sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup water
Instructions
- If using a stand mixer, fit with paddle attachment.
- Beat butter until smooth and creamy.
- Add in vanilla extract and beat until smooth.
- Bring mixer speed down to low. SLOWLY pour in powdered sugar and beat until smooth. If you do not listen to me about the slow part, you are going to have a big mess in your kitchen.
- The mixture is going to get thick. With the mixer still running, add water 1 tablespoon at a time to thin it out to desired consistency. Don’t put too much water in at once-you can’t take it out.How do you know what your desired consistency is? Honestly, practice, but I like my buttercream to be easy to stir with a spoon but if you stick the spoon in the frosting it won’t just tip over.
Not sure how to fill a piping bag? Check out my tutorial here using a water glass-makes it super easy!
Looking for more cake baking tips and tricks? Check out my posts on how to use straws for cake support or how to fix an ugly cake.
Happy Baking!
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