Camo Cupcakes, that's what someone from church ordered last week for our "Choir Kick-off" in church... Don't ask me why it was camo cupcakes... let me just say it was fun! LOL!
So... if your hubby is a hunter or you want to make a special batch of cupcakes for Memorial Day/Veterans Day or if you want to make a birthday boy very happy these cupcakes are perfect for the occasion!
Now... It's just really simple, you just have to be a little patient... if you look anywhere else online you will see that everybody is using cake mixes for these... I guess they say "well, they're cute enough and there's enough work involved with the elaboration, why bother making them from scratch?", plus, there's a big reason why people use cake mixes for these, think about it, you want the batter to be "the same" so that it doesn't have any problem with different textures/rising levels, etc. BUT you can still make a delicious batter from scratch that is good for this purpose and it doesn't have to be too complicated.
What I used is my easiest "go to" chocolate cupcake ingredients:
Delicious and Fluffy Chocolate Cupcakes (Yield: 12 cupcakes)
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil (preferably safflower)
- 1 cup water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon vinegar
As you can see the recipe calls for cocoa powder and it yields 12 standard sized cupcakes. So I just recommend you to make 2 batches. 1 exactly like the recipe calls and an additional batch where you will omit the cocoa powder and just increase the amount of all purpose flour with an additional 1/3 of a cup and 2 tsp. of vanilla extract instead of only 1.
The ingredients above you just have to mix them all together, the order doesn't matter too much, but I do prefer to mix flour, salt and baking soda first (and cocoa for the chocolate batter) and then just incorporate sugar, oil, water, vinegar and vanilla.
Once you have both batters (chocolate and vanilla) you will divide each batter in half, so you will have two chocolate batters and two vanilla batters, having done this just add some black gel food coloring to 1 of the chocolate batters and some green gel food coloring to 1 of the vanilla batter (plus some extra tablespoons of chocolate batter just to create the dry hue of military green you need) and voila, you will have 4 different colors of two different batters, 1 black chocolate, 1 brown chocolate, 1 military green vanilla, 1 plain vanilla.
What you want to do at this point is preheat your oven at 350 F, line your muffin tin with baking cups (cupcake paper liners) and fill plastic bags (ziploc or piping bags will work) with each of the batters, pipe the batters into the cupcake liners starting with the plain vanilla (about 1 1/2 tbsp. or so) to cover the bottom of the cup and then just start incorporating alternately the rest of the colors (even if you have to do more than one layer). Make sure to not cover the layer of vanilla entirely with the next color, you are adding the rest of the colors in the form of "spots", let the batter make spots that take their own shape, the batter for these cupcakes is "runny enough" to blend with the rest of the batter and thick enough to not mix with it (if that makes sense?). So... when you add each color you can make your own pattern, for example: In the left a green spot, then brown in the middle, then let some vanilla come through (or add more) and then the black, etc... Fill your cupcakes up to 3/4 but no more. Bake for about 15-16 minutes, insert a toothpick to check doneness, if the toothpick comes out clean the cupcakes are ready (do not overbake)
Here's how they will look:
See? They turn out fluffy and beautiful! Now... for the frosting you can use your favorite vanilla buttercream recipe and just add neon orange gel food coloring (or you can even make a camo frosting if you use green, chocolate and vanilla and then just pipe it all together). But this is easier and I think way brighter as well! And people can still appreciate the "camo" part of the cupcakes!
If you want an easy buttercream recipe you can use this basic one:
1 cup of butter (room temperature)
3 cups of powdered sugar (sifted is better)
1 pinch of salt
2 tsp. vanilla
2 or 3 tablespoons of heavy whipping cream
Cream the butter and sugar together, add the rest of the ingredients (add more or less whipping cream to reach the desired thickness/consistency) and mix on high until fluffy and airy. Ah! YUM! Easy and delicious! Then just add the food coloring and mix just until evenly blended. I piped it using a closed star tip starting in the outside and ending in the center (kind of overlapping with every turn and circle).
There you have it! Camo Cupcakes with Neon Orange Frosting... FROM SCRATCH!
Enjoy!
© Paloma K.
