Mossy Woodland Cupcakes

Full disclosure this wasn’t a post I was planning on writing.

You see I found a DIY for mossy cupcakes on Pinterest and was just planning on linking that tutorial from my upcoming woodland birthday party post.

I gathered my supplies, followed the direction down to a T, and it was NOT happening.

The color clumped and wouldn’t mix and then I spent far too much time filtering out inedible green dough balls. Not willing to give up on the idea, I then created my own process that worked so much better (and IMO looked just as good).

So if you started with another mossy cupcake DIY that isn’t panning out, don’t give up! I’ve got you covered!

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Materials

(This made more than enough to cover 70 cupcakes)

FIRST let me let you in on a hack if you are busy and have no interest in baking cupcakes too. Go to your local store bakery and order the cupcakes!

Tell them you want plenty of chocolate buttercream on the side but to leave the cupcakes undecorated. I think we paid 20 bucks for 60 cupcakes and 2 huge batches of chocolate buttercream which was WELL worth me not having to mess with the oven!

Put the graham crackers in a gallon ziplock baggie and crush with a rolling pin until the crumbs are extremely fine.

hint: Once the majority of the Graham Crackers are finely crushed, you can give the bag a quick shake and any larger stragglers will rise to the top.

Next add the desiccated coconut to the bag, then shake until it is well dispersed.

Empty the contents of the bag into the large mixing bowl and put on some gloves because we are about to get a bit messy!

Add 3 tablespoons of vodka to the measuring cup then add in 3 drops of green food color and 8 drops of yellow food color.

hint: Don’t worry this is still a kid friendly recipe! The vodka will evaporate and you won’t even be able to tell it was ever there. I mainly work with cookies and use vodka to dilute food coloring to paint with frequently.

Add the food coloring-vodka mixture to the mixing bowl.

Mix with your gloved hands.

hint: If any food color balls start to form break them apart by rolling in between your thumb and forefinger along with some more graham cracker mixture.

Once the color is well dispersed make a judgement call if you need to add more food coloring (WITH Vodka, believe me you don’t want to try it without).

hint: The mixture will still look uneven thats okay its supposed to!

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spread the mix out to dry for 30 minutes or until completely dry if you added more food coloring.

Put a thin layer of chocolate buttercream on your cupcake (it doesn’t need to be perfect!)

Dip your cupcake in the graham cracker mixture.

Voila! Mossy cupcakes!

From here your imagination is your only limitation. I decided to decorate my most recent batch of mossy woodland cupcakes with my adorable fox cookies and picture perfect pumpkin cookies. So if you plan on adding some cookies as decor keep reading for some helpful hints!

First, I highly recommend using cupcake wrappers, not only do they make the cupcakes so much more picturesque but they also support the side of the cupcake when you push the cookies into them so they don’t spread! I loved these cute reversible wood cupcake wrappers I found and they matched my “wood” paper plates perfectly!

hint: If you decide not to use cupcake wrappers place the cupcakes in a cupcake tin when you press the cookies in.

Next press in the cookies! I just gently pressed until they seemed sturdily held in there. They may pop back up a tiny smidge but it’s okay it’ll just look like they’ve been sitting in real dirt thanks to the chocolate buttercream.

Now you have some adorable woodland cupcakes to show off to all your guests! Be sure to be on the lookout for more DIYS coming soon!