Close-up of beach-themed cupcakes with crumbled graham crackers on the counter

Family Fun

Beach-Themed and Sandcastle Cupcakes

Since it’s summer, we thought you might like a beachy version of our winter cupcakes that we made a few years ago.

These are beach-inspired and guess, what? No sand included! So you don’t have to worry about biting down on any grit. These simple cupcakes are made with cinnamon and graham cracker crumbs and they are delicious!

You can make any kind of cupcake you like and just add our graham-cracker-crumb topping but we decided to make some cinnamon vanilla cupcakes as our cake base. Here is the recipe we used:

Cinnamon and Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

2 cups of flour
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup butter at room temperature (salted is fine)
3 egg whites
3 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup greek yogurt
1/2 cup milk
2 tbs cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place cupcake liners in a cupcake tin.
Mix flour, cinnamon, brown sugar, baking soda, and baking powder in a bowl.
Add butter, eggs whites, yogurt, vanilla, and milk to dry mixture and mix until smooth.
Fill cupcake liners 3/4 of the way full.
Bake 15-18 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean)
Cool

Once the cupcakes have completely cool it’s time to top with your frosting. We used this really simple buttercream recipe.

To make the “sandy beach” topping we crumbled 5-10 graham crackers in a food processor and added 1 tsp of cinnamon. Adjust to taste.

You don’t have to use a food processor. Crushing the graham crackers by hand with a spoon is just as effective. You just want to crush them until they resemble sand. Then sprinkle your graham cracker crumble on top of your buttercream frosting and you have what looks like a sandy beach!

But we’re not done yet. Now for the fun: some tiny beach kid cupcake toppers as decoration!

CLICK HERE for our Beach Fun printable. Then print and cut.

These cupcake toppers are designed for a 2-inch hole punch but if you don’t have one, cutting them out by free hand is perfectly fine. In fact, I kind of like the bubble-cut look better myself.