Cupcake Cocktails

Busy weeks call for alcohol... right??

Or alcoholic inspired cupcakes at least.

I received a request for some birthday strawberry margarita cupcakes with lime buttercream like the cake I made for my parents' birthday cake. (recipe and pics)

I wanted to turn up the cute factor by making them look like little cocktails - so I used some luau themed flamingo and palm tree picks to decorate.

What's a cocktail without a straw? Luckily Stop & Shop had these bendy straws in their seasonal BBQ section! I just had to cut them down to size.

For garnish, I bought lime candy slices at economy candy and cut them in half.

I didn't want to ruin the sweetness of the lime buttercream icing by rimming them in salt so I rolled the edges in a mixture of pink and green colored sugar instead.

Ahhhh, don't these look refreshing?

I realized later that they sell bottled Strawberry Margarita Mix... I'd like to try that in the recipe next time. Sometimes Strawberry cake mix is hard to find so it would probably be a good substitute to achieve the strawberry flavor in yellow cake mix as well.