Easy Mermaid Cupcakes

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These easy Mermaid cupcakes are perfect for Mermaid theme parties, pool parties, and more! We made teal cupcakes with a multi-colored frosting in pink, teal, and purple. We topped them with the cutest sprinkles and our own homemade candy mermaid tails. These would also be great to enjoy while watching The Little Mermaid or the new remake coming out in a few weeks!

Why we love this recipe-

• These are some easy cupcakes, since we used box cake mix for our cupcake base. 
• These cupcakes are perfect for any mermaid fan, their mermaid themed party, mermaid birthday party, or just because.
• This recipe makes 12 cupcakes. The box mix will make 24 cakes, if you want to double the frosting and the mermaid tails you can make two dozen!

Easy Mermaid Cupcakes Ingredients:

• ​1 (15.25 oz) box of white cake mix + ingredients on the back- water, oil, egg whites)
• ​1 (12 oz) bag of bright pink candy melts
• 1 (12 oz) bag of blue candy melts
• Optional: Pearl colored & mermaid colored edible luster dust
• Mermaid tail mold (or molds) – we used 3 inch, anything similarly sized will work
• 1 cup unsalted butter (two sticks), softened
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1-2 tbsp milk
• Pink gel color
• Teal gel color
• Purple gel color
• ​Mermaid sprinkle mix

How to Make these Mermaid Cupcakes

Step 1: To make the cupcakes, start by making the mermaid tails. Melt the pink candy melts by microwaving on 30 second intervals, stirring well between.

Step 2: Add the melted pink candy to a piping bag and snip off the tip.

Step 3: Pipe the melted candy into your mermaid mold, it is fine to overfill the mold a bit.

Step 4: Take a spatula with a flat edge and scrape it across the back of the mold to remove any excess. It is also helpful to use a paper towel and gently wipe the edges of the silicone mold to remove excess candy.

Step 5: Place the mold into the refrigerator for about 5 minutes. When you are first starting, this may take a few minutes longer since the candy melts are warmer, but as you go you’ll be able to firm them up in less time. Once the tail is set and the candy has hardened, remove the tail from the mold very gently. Be careful to avoid the skinny end of the tail just before the fins, I found that pulling back the mold on the wider end of the tail and then turning it upside down to let it fall out into my hand was the best method to keep the tails from breaking. If you do have a tail break, don’t worry, you have plenty of candy to work with if you need extra tails.

​Step 6: Repeat this process to make 6 pink tails. It goes faster if you have more than one mold to work with. We used a food safe paint brush to brush pearl edible shimmer onto the pink tails.

Step 7: Repeat this process for the blue candy melts to make 6 blue tails. We used this mermaid colored edible shimmer to brush over our blue tails.

NOTE: Your candy melts will stay melted long enough for you to do all of the tails, but it will work best if you have 2-3 molds to do at the same time. If you find that the candy melts at the end of your piping bag have started to solidify, just push that bit of candy out until the candy melts are flowing again.

Step 8: Once you have 12 tails made you are ready for the cupcakes. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together cake mix, water, oil, and egg whites. Add 3-4 drops of teal gel color and whisk to combine. Add extra color, if needed, to get your desired shade. You can also color the cakes pink, purple, etc.. if you prefer.

Step 9: Place cupcake liners into a 12 cup muffin tin, and fill them about 2/3-3/4 full with cupcake batter. Bake according to the package directions, at 350 for about 18 or so minutes. Allow the cupcakes to cool to room temperature before frosting.

Step 10: For the buttercream frosting, in a large mixing bowl, use your stand mixer or a hand mixer to beat the butter until smooth. Add vanilla and powdered sugar, and mix well, until frosting starts to form. Add 1 tbsp. milk to get things going if it stays powdery.

​If the frosting is too thick, add an additional tbsp. of milk, if it is too thin you can add 2 tbsp. powdered sugar at a time to get it the right consistency. You want the frosting thick enough that it won’t fall on your cupcakes, but not too thick to pipe.

Step 11: Once the frosting is mixed up, divide it evenly into 3 separate bowls.

Step 12: To the first bowl, add 3-4 drops of pink gel coloring. Mix to combine. Add more if needed, to get your desired shade of pink.

​Step 13: Pull out about a foot long piece of plastic wrap. Spoon the pink frosting onto the plastic wrap, and wrap up the ends.

Step 14: Repeat this to the other two bowls- one bowl you’ll add teal coloring and one bowl add purple.

Step 15: Once you have your three frosting colors wrapped up, snip off one end of the twisted plastic wrap. Prepare a piping bag with a 1M star tip, and place all 3 together into the piping bag, snipped ends down towards the piping tip. Push the frosting down to get it started, if you have one color that moves faster than others you can push out a bit of the frosting before you start on the cupcakes, so that you have the 3 colors combined together when you frost.

Step 16: Frost the cupcakes, then to the top of the cupcake, add mermaid sprinkles, and one of your candy mermaid tails.

I had to really push the mermaid tails into my cakes, I had one tail try to fall off of the cake, which messed up the frosting, etc… if you can, it may be helpful to place a toothpick 1/4 of the way into the wide end of the tail right after it comes out of the refrigerator. I didn’t try this myself, so no guarantees it won’t break your tail, but it is worth a shot  to make them more stable on your cakes. You could also add the picks after the fact, by flipping over the tails, placing the pick onto the flat back side of the tail, and piping a bit of the extra candy melts over where the toothpick is laying. Allow this some time to set before placing onto your cupcakes.

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Tips & FAQs

• These mermaid sprinkles are so cute, they would also make for a fun surprise inside cupcake filled with sprinkles in the center of the cupcake. Do be careful with the bigger round sprinkles, they are better off dissolving than being chewed when you are enjoying these cakes. For the safest cupcakes for your teeth, you could find blue, teal, pink, and purple jimmies, as well.
• We used our own homemade frosting recipe, you can use store bought  as well, just thicken it with powdered sugar to get a stiffer frosting for these cakes. You’ll also be thinning it with food coloring, so it may take several tbsp. of powdered sugar.
• ​You can also use your own homemade cupcake recipe instead of the boxed cake mix, if you prefer.
• I feel like making the fun mermaid tail cupcake toppers out of candy melts was easy, but if you’d rather skip that part you can always purchase some premade mermaid cupcake toppers. Alternatively, if you enjoy making the candy in the molds, our mermaid tail silicone mold set also included a seashell mold that you could use to add even more fun detail to your cupcakes.

How to make mermaid colored frosting

You can see our easy instructions for creating multi-colored ombre frosting. You can use any colors you prefer that make you think of mermaids! Green, red, purple, etc…

We hope you enjoy these gorgeous mermaid cupcakes. For more fun Mermaid party ideas, see these below-

Mermaid Punch

You might also like some of our other fun themed cupcakes-

Beach Themed Cupcakes