Camo Cupcakes-homemade goodness!

These were so fun to create and they topped off my nephews' Camo Birthday Party. I will share with you here today how I made these. I was needing 2 cakes- one white and one chocolate. The chocolate one I found in my book: Taste of Home's Complete guide to Baking. It is a Chocolate Buttermilk Cake. I don't buy buttermilk, I just make my own. I needed to do that first. I poured 2 TBS of lemon juice into a 1 cup measuring cup. Then filled the rest of the way up with milk (I used 1% milk). You could also use white vinegar if you do not have lemon juice. Let is set for about 5 minutes and it will curdle. While that is going on I go ahead and get the rest of the ingredients ready.

Chocolate Buttermilk Cake
Ingredients:
1 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
1 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
2 and 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup baking cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup water

In a large bowl, cream shortening and sugar until fluffy. Beat in buttermilk and eggs. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with water, beating well after each addition. Set aside and star the next cake mix!

I was looking for a white cake mix, however most white cake mixes call for lots of egg whites. I finally settled on a yellow cake mix on Pinterest called The Best One-Bowl Yellow Cake. I was willing to try this recipe because it has charm. It came from a 100 year old cook book. Hey, with that much experience behind it, it is bound to be good. And besides it only called for 2 eggs! I followed the recipe just as it says.

Once the yellow cake mix was ready I divided it in half and colored 1 olive green and the other I added just enough brown to make it tan. Then I was ready to fill the cupcake pan. I used small scoops and alternated the chocolate, green, and tan cake mixes. (Sorry forgot to take a picture of this step). I baked at 350 degrees for around 20 minutes or so. This is how lovely I mean how manly they looked coming out of the oven!

While the cupcakes cooled I got to work on the frosting. In my same book: Taste of Home's Complete guide to Baking, they have this one to go with the Buttermilk Chocolate. I ended up doubling because I had almost 40 cupcakes. But for the regular recipe it calls for:
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups confectioners sugar
4 to 5 tsp milk

Cream butter, shortening and vanilla in a large bowl. Gradually beat in confectioners sugar and enough milk to achieve a spreading consistency. Once I had the frosting complete, I separated it into 3 bowls and colored one olive green, one tan, and the last brown. I used a large star tip and coupler set to get the swirl effect I was looking for.

 They were yummy and just about gone before the days end!

Print Recipes

Camo Birthday Party Ideas

My first official order for this new business of mine, was from my sister-in-law Carly. She gave me call and said she was looking on my Facebook page and decided I needed a boy party on the page. She was right! My nephew's birthday was coming up and she ordered some camo cupcakes and I also went ahead and did the banners as well. She then let me take pics of some decor ideas that she used. 

The duck in the picture below I purchased at the thrift store for only 65 cents! We both thought it would fit in with what she was planning.

For starters I knew that I would want to make some cake picks. I have a Cricut machine, however I do not have a cartridge for the shape I wanted. Well, what did I do before I received a Cricut- I did it by hand. 
I was going to need a pattern so I turned to Pinterest for one. I enjoy Pinterest immensely! You can find just about anything there. I found a few that would work, however my printer was not working at the time. I was unable to print out a pattern. 
So what's a girl to do? Yep, that's right, I traced it. The computer screen works like a light box. So I gently placed a piece of copy paper up on the screen and lightly traced around the pattern. I cut it out and then used it for my pattern for the cake picks I would make. 

I worked on a few at a time and before I knew it, I had enough small for 24 cupcakes and 6 large for the banner. Once I cut them out of cardstock I inked (using an ink pad) around the edges with bright orange to give it some pop! Then I adhered them to a toothpick.

large ones I used for banner, I layered with a piece of camo paper

I did 12 bucks and 12 duck camo cake picks

In case you are wondering I timed myself on the small ones, I was under 2 minutes to trace and cut each one. Not too bad for how cute they turned out! 

The banner I made with scrapbook paper and my Cricut machine for the letters. I found here a pattern to make each triangle. I inked around the letters with a stamp pad in bright orange as well to coordinate with the picks.

This was a very fun party. It was a beautiful March afternoon. My brother BBQ'd, we shared potluck, the kiddos got to run all over the countryside as well as horse ride and everyone got to enjoy the yummy cupcakes-which I will share in Friday's post.