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St. Patrick’s Day Cupcakes

So the hubs comes home from work one night and says he has to take cupcakes to the office.

“Say what? Why?!”

“Because I’ve been bragging on your cupcakes and it’s time to put up or shut up.”

Oh goodness. The pressure. What was I going to make? We had already past Valentine’s Day. It was too early for Easter cupcakes.

I’m not Irish but I can get behind a Saint. Patrick’s Day cupcake, so why not?

Irish cupcakes
boxed shamrock cupcakes

(This is the second batch I made)

I’ll admit, I cheated a little. These were not entirely from scratch. And I’ll be a leprechaun’s uncle if I can find a mini shamrock cookie cutter when I really need one.

No matter. Here’s what I did.

Melted some key lime chocolate candy melts from Wilton (I put a little extra gel color in to make them darker than Shrek green). Put them in a pastry bag and free-hand drew a whole mess of shamrocks onto parchment paper. Yes, I could have printed out shamrocks on a piece of paper and put it under the parchment paper to use as a drawing template, but no. That would be too smart of me to do. I just grabbed the hot bag of chocolate and went for it. They’re abstract shamrocks, can’t you tell? Let those harden overnight (or at least several hours. I do everything late at night so for me, it’s the same thing).

For the cupcakes, I couldn’t just make a plain cupcake. And I didn’t want to just layer green and white cake which seems so boring anymore, it needed to kick it up a notch up since this was for bragging rights. So here’s where I cut some corners. I mixed up a white cake mix and divided it in two. In one bowl, I left it white. In the other bowl, I dumped in a package of lime Jello. Voila. Now it’s green and tasty. Oh yeah, you have to stir it. Don’t forget to stir the Jello and the cake batter. You could add more coloring to the batter if you wanted a darker green.

layered cupcake

THEN I alternated batter layers, white then green, white then green. Baked the cupcakes according to the directions on the box (shudder to admit that). I did make homemade buttercream frosting and decorated each cupcake with some green sprinkles (overstock from Christmas) and then topped with my free form shamrocks.

Blarney stone if they didn’t taste great. Give them a try the next time your husband comes home from the office and says he needs cupcakes the next day. I’ll be he calls you his pot of gold.

shamrock cupcakes

(Cupcake liners are from Michaels.)

 

Yield: 1 dozen

St. Patrick Day Cupcakes

St Patrick Day Cupcakes

Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 9 minutes
Total Time 34 minutes

Ingredients

  • Key lime chocolate candy
  • Green gel color
  • Pastry bag
  • Parchment paper
  • White cake mix
  • Lime Jello
  • Buttercream frosting
  • Green Sprinkles

Instructions

  1. For the shamrocks

    Melt key lime chocolate candy
    Add gel coloring
    Put both in a pastry bag
    Freehand or trace shamrock shapes onto parchment paper
    Squeeze chocolate and gel mix onto parchment paper
    Let harden overnight

    For the cupcakes

    Mix up white cake mix, divide it into two
    In one bowl, leave it white
    Add lime jello to the other half, stir, stir, stir
    Alternate layers of white and green cake mix in the cupcake tin
    Bake according to cake mix directions

    Once they've cooled, add buttercream frosting, shamrocks, and sprinkles.

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