krysten
- Aug 7, 2020
- 3 min read

Little Mermaid "Ariel" Cupcakes | Gluten Free & Dairy Free

I wanna be where the people are … eating adorable mermaid cupcakes, Disneyland churros and watching fireworks bedazzle the sky above Sleeping Beauty’s castle. I really miss The Happiest Place on Earth, and in my spare time I’ve been watching fun Disney docuseries on Disney+, as well as some classics like The Jungle Book and The Little Mermaid! I recently watched a screening of the documentary HOWARD, which you can read more about here. It’s only fitting to make and eat cute Little Mermaid cupcakes while watching HOWARD on Disney+, which is streaming now! (Step by step photos below)

I always loved Aurora because of her Pink dress (I love PINK!) but my true favorite is Ariel. I was 2 years old when The Little Mermaid came out, and I loved every moment of it. I had this fun idea to make Little Mermaid inspired cupcakes and I am so excited to share them with you. I am bursting with joy at how they turned out, too!

By the way ... if you LOVE The Little Mermaid and all things Ariel then you totally need to check out my friend, Traci Hines! She is Ariel IN REAL LIFE! Isn’t she stunning!? You need to check out her amazing videos on YouTube! And she has the cutest line of mermaid tees and more! Check them out HERE.

How cute is that Ariel mug! You can get one here!

Okay so you can 100% make these cupcakes - don’t be such a guppy! I promise it’s easier than you think. They just look super fancy.

CUPCAKE DETAILS:

CUPCAKES: I used my favorite paleo, gluten free cupcake mix from Simple Mills. It’s pretty much my go-to for quick cupcake baking. You can use chocolate or vanilla OR whatever you have on hand. I chose purple cupcake liners.

FROSTING: For the frosting I once again used Simple Mills Vanilla dairy-free frosting. You could make your own — whatever is easiest for you and works best for your needs.

COLORS: I used Color Kitchen Foods Natural food coloring for everything here. Their colors are made with things like turmeric, beets and spirulina. Super clean and very pretty.

MERMAID TAILS: I found some amazing sparkly mermaid tails online. There are others as well, but I loved this set which comes in purple or teal. I trimmed the sticks a little so they wouldn’t sit so high up on each cupcake. Click here for mermaid tails.

SAND: The “sand” is made from Simple Mills Crunchy Pecan Cookies. You just have to put them in the blender, food processor or a bag and grind them up. Use your favorite crunchy cookies for this part.

BUBBLES: I had to add a few sprinkles as “bubbles” to each cupcake. I used the large and small white balls from the Supernatural Sprinkles called FULL OF HEART which you can see here.

SHELLS: The adorable sea shells carefully placed on top of each cupcake are made with a mold I found online. (Click here). There are so many different ones to choose from. There really is no paleo white chocolate on the market (YET!), so I actually used the Simple Mills frosting again to make these! This particular frosting hardens in the fridge, so I filled the molds with different colored frosting and placed them in the fridge to harden while the cupcakes were in the oven.

**Okay! Let’s put these adorable cupcakes together - because we got no troubles, life is the bubbles under the sea! (See directions and steps below with photos)**

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WHAT YOU NEED:

Cake Mix (prepared as cupcakes)
Vanilla Frosting
Crunchy Cookies
Blue food coloring
Purple food coloring
Pink food coloring
Mermaid Tails
Sea Shell candy mold
Sprinkles

Directions: Make cupcakes as per instructions on the box. Do not decorate until fully cooled.

While cupcakes are in the oven, make the different color frostings. I can’t tell you how much you will need of each color since that’s up to you how many cupcakes, sea shells and frosting you put on each cupcake. I did however make 12 cupcakes and used 1 box of cupcake mix and 1 1/2 containers of Simple Mills Frosting (“standard sized” container of frosting).