Beach Towel Cupcake Cake

Ingredients:

• 10 tbsp. American buttercream
• Yellow gel food coloring
• Orange gel food coloring
• Turquoise gel food coloring
• 24 of Your Favorite Cupcakes
• 4 blue sour chewing belts, 5 cm each, such as Sour Belts
• Special equipment: 4 pastry bags with large round tips; dough scraper

Preparation:

1. Tint about 2 cups of buttercream yellow. Tint about 2 cups of buttercream orange. Tint about 2 cups of buttercream turquoise. Transfer all colors, including the remaining 4 cups of white buttercream, to four pastry bags fitted with large round tips.
2. Arrange the cupcakes in a 4x6 rectangle. Cover each cupcake with about half the white frosting and spread it out. Refrigerate the cupcakes until the frosting sets, about 15 minutes. Starting from one of the top corners of the rectangle, pipe horizontal lines of varying colors and thicknesses, making them as even as possible. Set aside about a quarter of each frosting to decorate the "towel."
3. Using a flat metal scraper, smooth out the cream: run the scraper along the cream in the same direction as the stripes, applying light pressure and making sure to scrape off the cream after each stripe. Pipe a pair of orange flip-flops onto a towel, attaching tops with sourdough ribbons. Pipe a white outline of sunglasses and fill the inside with blue. Pipe a white bottle of sunscreen onto the towel. Decorate the bottle with your desired design.