Ingredients

Step by step

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C, fan 160°C, gas 4. Line 12 holes in a muffin tin with cupcake cases.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs, beating well, followed by the vanilla. Fold in the flour followed by the milk to loosen a little; the mixture should fall easily from a spoon. Divide the mixture among the cases and bake for 12-15 minutes until springy and a light golden brown. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool.
3. For the icing, beat the butter first then gradually whisk in the icing sugar. Beat in the milk followed by 1 teaspoon of the food colouring. If you want it to be darker or your colouring isn’t very strong, add a little more, and avoid mixing it in fully so that you have a slightly streaky effect, so the ‘sea’ has a variety of blue tones.
4. Spread or pipe the icing on each cupcake, leaving a tablespoonful in the bowl, and don’t worry about it being too neat – swoops and swirls will make it look like waves. Dip half the top of most of the cupcakes into the biscuit crumb ‘sand’, then spritz the non-sand half with silver shimmer spray. Cut the rainbow belts into short strips and either stick them onto the ‘sand’ side to look like beach towels (using a little of the leftover frosting to help them stick) or trim to resemble mini surfboards and place on the ‘sea’. Using a little frosting on the back or feet of each gingerbread man, stick them lying down on the ‘towels’ or standing up on the ‘surfboards’. For the rest, stick some of the gingerbread men deeper into the ‘sand’ so it looks as if they’ve been buried, adding some extra biscuit crumbs around them. Finally, finish some of the cupcakes with cocktail umbrellas – we don’t want those beach bums to burn!