Project Post 11: Camouflage Cupcakes

I don't usually file recipes under "project posts," but this one was a project for sure. We partied hard over the weekend, and I don't know what Levi thought, but his mom and dad thought the party was pretty perfect. Today I am sharing the birthday cake cupcakes.

A few months ago, I typed in "camo party" on Pinterest and believe it or not, a full page of results came up. This was one of them:

{Found here, originally here}


After I found this, I decided to make these instead of ordering a traditional cake. They were challenging to make and very time-consuming, but it was definitely worth it.

I made butter pecan cake with traditional cream cheese icing, but those are standard. To get the camo colors, you use food coloring. I bought regular green, neon green, and brown food coloring (the greens were bought at the grocery store, and for the brown I went to Hobby Lobby). The regular green was too bright, so I mixed a little brown with it to get it the perfect shade. The neon green was way too yellow, so I mixed regular green and a tiny bit of brown with it to get it the right shade. Here were the colors I ended up with after some trial-and-error mixing:

Per instructions from the original source, you put a tablespoon of each color in each baking cup and just swirl it with a knife. That girl had an easier time than I did. I put a tablespoon of each in each cup and the top color was the only one that would show no matter how much I "swirled." So I had to get a little more creative with some trial-and-error. Surprisingly enough, they ended up looking great!

I used traditional cream cheese icing (butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar), a few brown and green sprinkles, and the little cupcake toppers that I made. They were a hit!

So there you have it - my camouflage birthday cupcakes, idea courtesy of Pinterest. This was such a fun project, I decided to link up with Young House Love and Bower Power Blog for their Pinterest Challenge (Fall Edition). You can check it out Wednesday when the challenge ends. I submitted my chalkboard in their summer challenge, and you can see it here (#212 at the end of the post).

{Lovely hostesses of the Pinterest Challenge}