Camo Cupcakes: A brief tutorial

The first time I made "Camo Cupcakes" was well over 10 years ago. Back then I thought I was so clever, creating this fun idea. But thanks to the modern Pinterest era, I realize that it's not such a novel cupcake idea after all! Even so, these cupcakes are so cute, I thought I would share a brief tutorial to show you how simple it is to create them.

First, I made my favorite vanilla cupcake recipe. I divided the batter into thirds. In one bowl I added cocoa and mixed well. In the next bowl, I added green food coloring and mixed it into the batter. The third bowl I left plain. If you want to make four colors, or five, go ahead! Get cray cray with it!

After the batter was tinted, I lined my muffin pan with liners. I added a spoonful of the three colors of batter into each one, in varying order. This is what it looked like before going into the oven to bake:

10-15 minutes later, this was the result:

I used both green and white wrappers, but in hindsight, I should have used only white. I like how the colors of the camo show through the white ones but you can't see it too well through the green. Here they are side by side so you can see the difference before you decide which colors to use for your liners:

For the frosting, I swirled three colors together and piped onto the cupcakes. First, I made a batch of my favorite Hershey's chocolate frosting and set aside. Then I made a batch of vanilla buttercream, divided it in half, and tinted half of it green. I used a large pastry bag with star tip (but you can use any kind of tip), and scooped one generous dollop of each of the three colors of frosting into the bag. I did NOT mix them; I tried to keep each spoonful separate before piping. This was the result:

Once again you can use more than three colors, but be careful not to mix them too much. Each cupcake will be unique when you are finished:

For a finishing touch I made camo fondant stars. I divided my fondant into three medium-sized balls, tinting one black, one green, and one brown. I then stuck the three balls together to form one big ball, and rolled it into a flat disc WITHOUT kneading the colors together, about 1/2 cm thick. I used a small star cutter to make the stars. You can re-roll the fondant, being careful not to blend the colors together too much. I didn't get a picture of the process, but this is what they looked like on the cupcakes:

No need for more decorations than that! Simple and cute! The perfect birthday treat for a 7 year old boy who already thinks he is a 3-Star General!