These easy green velvet cupcakes are a festive treat for St. Patrick’s Day plus they’re absolutely delicious! Moist green cupcakes get topped with cream cheese frosting and filled with gold sprinkles for a fun St. Patrick’s Day surprise!
Magical Green Velvet Cupcakes
I love how fun St. Patrick’s Day is, especially with kids. The entire holiday is full of magic and surprises – leprechaun and rainbows.
There’s nothing better than doing a leprechaun hunt that ends with a bag full of yummy Lucky Charms cookies and chocolate gold coins!
These fun green cupcakes for St. Patrick’s Day are about as magical as you can get with their dark green coloring and pot of gold sprinkles inside! Kids will love the fun surprise and adults will love the taste!
Why you’ll love these Green Cupcakes
- Easy – these green cupcakes are as easy as they come! Just mix some ingredients together, bake, fill, and frost! Even the frosting is simple.
- Fun – these are really fun to eat with the gold sprinkles inside – it just gives it a nice added sweetness and an element of fun! Just make sure to use the right type of sprinkles!
Ingredient Notes
- Cream cheese – for the frosting, you want to use full-fat cream cheese that’s nice and soft.
- Butter – make sure you’re using unsalted butter that’s also soft. Salted will give your frosting a little bit of a salty taste – not ideal for these cupcakes.
- Buttermilk – if you don’t have buttermilk, you can combine a cup of regular whole milk with 1 TBS of lemon juice or white vinegar, let it sit for ten minutes, and then use that in place of the buttermilk. Actual buttermilk is always better but that substitution using regular milk works fine in a pinch.
- Cocoa powder – normal unsweetened cocoa powder works, it’s just a little bit but reacts with the buttermilk to give you the velvet texture.
- Green food coloring – I tried out all sorts of green food coloring options to get the right dark green color I was looking for.
What green food coloring should I use?
We tried out seven different types of green food coloring because a couple of people made these and said the green food color didn’t come through and no one wants brown cupcakes that aren’t just chocolate.
I’ve linked the different food colorings we tried below – the AmeriColor leaf green gel paste food coloring was the clear winner and the one we used for our cupcakes in this post. The next best was the Wilton Leaf Green Icing Color.
After that it just depends on what color you’re looking for, but I definitely recommend using a gel food coloring over liquid – the liquid just couldn’t hold up to the color of the cupcake batter.
How to make Green Cupcakes
These cupcakes are super easy to make!
1 – Make and bake the green cupcakes
In the base of a stand mixer, combine flour, baking powder, sugar, cocoa powder, and salt.
- Preheat oven to 350°F and line cupcake pans with baking cups.
- Combine flour, cocoa powder, sugar, salt, baking soda and baking powder in either a mixing bowl or bowl of a stand mixer.
- In a small bowl, mix buttermilk, eggs, oil, vinegar, vanilla, and food coloring.
- Add softened butter to the flour mixture and mix on low until the ingredients resemble wet sand.
- Scrape the sides of the bowl then mix in the green wet ingredient mixture. Combine for about a minute, stopping half way to scrape the bowl.
- Evenly distribute the batter between all the cupcake liners, making sure not to fill more than halfway or they’ll overflow when baked.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, or until they spring back when lightly touched or a toothpick comes out clean from the center.
Tip!
If you want to use basic cupcake liners to bake the cupcakes in and then add an extra one (like in my pictures) on the outside for decoration, that’s a fun way to do it as well! I did white paper liners on the actual cupcakes in the cupcake tin and then “plated” them in gold cupcake wrappers to match my St. Patrick’s Day printables!
3 – Make The Cream cheese frosting
While the cupcakes are cooling, make the frosting. You don’t want to frost the cupcakes until they’re completely cooled or the frosting will just melt off.
- Start by beating the butter on medium high speed for about 5 minutes or until it is light and fluffy.
- Add the softened cream cheese and beat until smooth.
- Add the powdered sugar a little at a time until it is all added and frosting is smooth and creamy.
Green Cream Cheese Frosting?
If you want with a completely green twist, you can also add a bit of the gel food coloring to the cream cheese frosting to turn it into a green cream cheese frosting. I like the look of the white with gold sprinkles but green food coloring can be fun twist if you really want that vibrant green cupcakes look!
3 – Fill and Decorate the Cupcakes
- Use a piping bag tip or a spoon to remove a small section of cake from the center of each cupcake, fill with gold sprinkles, then place the removed section back over the hole.
- Use a piping bag to frost the green cupcakes and dust with more gold sprinkles if desired. I just used a round piping tip but again feel free to decorate these however you want!
Sprinkle Tip!
I used these gold sprinkles and thought they were perfect because they’re a little thicker than normal gold sanding sugar, giving them more of the appearance of gold. You can also do a combination of gold sprinkles and shamrock sprinkles to make them extra festive. Just make sure the sprinkles aren’t super hard or no one will want to eat them!
Serve the cupcakes once completely cooled!
They make a great addition to a St. Patrick’s Day dessert table or they would be so much fun as a treat at the end of a St. Patrick’s Day scavenger hunt!
Or if you’re not using these for St. Patrick’s Day – these green cupcakes would be great for a green baby shower (surprisingly one of the most popular boy baby shower themes!).
How to store Green Cupcakes
There are a few things you need to know about storing these green cupcakes. They store great, you just need to know how do it!
If you know you’re not going to use the cupcakes right away (if you want to make them ahead of time), bake the cupcakes and once cooled, store in an airtight container for up to three days. Do this before you fill or frost them.
If you want to store leftover cupcakes (after they’ve been filled and frosted), store the frosted green cupcakes in the refrigerator for up to three days. That cream cheese frosting will go bad if you leave it out!
How to Freeze Green Cupcakes
These green cupcakes only freeze well before they’re filled and frosted. If you want to make them ahead of time and freeze, bake and cool the cupcakes completely. Then place the cooled unfrosted cupcakes in an airtight container or freezer safe gallon size zipper bag and freeze for up to three months.
When you’re ready to use the cupcakes, remove from the freezer and thaw to room temperature before filling and frosting the green velvet cupcakes.
Tips & Storage Info
Serve these on plates and encourage people to eat them above a plate so that when they do bite into the cupcake and get the surprise inside, you don’t end up with sprinkles everywhere.
Add rainbow sprinkles to the gold sprinkles for an even more colorful burst of magic when you eat these!
Don’t add the sprinkles or frost the cupcakes until these are cooled completely. Sprinkles can just melt into warm cupcakes if added while they’re still hot.
Don’t like cream cheese frosting? These are fine with buttercream frosting as well, but the cream cheese is better in my opinion.
Mix up the insides! Don’t want to do sprinkles? Fill them with fun Lucky Charms marshmallows or rainbow candies or whatever you want.
Recipe FAQs
What is green cake made of?
Green velvet cake is made of flour, sugar, buttermilk, baking powder, eggs, butter, salt, and vanilla. These make a moist, sweet, cake with a slight chocolate flavor that’s dyed green to give you the green color.
How much food coloring do you use for green cake?
This recipe is written based on using one teaspoon of food coloring with the measurements in the recipe. That should get you the colors shown in the picture above.
What if my cream cheese frosting is too thick?
Add a teaspoon of milk or heavy cream at a time and mix again until you get the consistency you want.
More Easy Cupcake Recipes
If you like this green cupcake recipe, make sure to try out these other delicious cupcakes!
- Grinch cupcakes – a simple cupcake that’s frosted to look like everyone’s favorite holiday villain, the Grinch himself!
- Banana pudding cupcakes – a semi-homemade cupcake recipe that starts with a box mix and gets filled with homemade banana pudding and topped with a whipped cream frosting!
- Pumpkin cupcakes – a deliciously moist pumpkin cupcake topped with a delightful cheesecake frosting!
- Hot chocolate cupcakes – chocolate cupcakes made with hot chocolate, melted chocolate, and of course marshmallows!
Green Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
Cupcakes
- 1 ¼ cups flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoon cocoa powder
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 6 Tablespoons butter softened
- ½ cup buttermilk
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon white vinegar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp leaf green gel food coloring I recommend AmeriColor
- gold sprinkles optional
Frosting
- 8 ounces cream cheese (softened to room temperature)
- ½ cup unsalted butter (softened to room temperature)
- 4 cups powdered sugar
Instructions
Cupcakes
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line cupcake pans with baking cups. Spray baking cups.
- In the bowl for the stand mixer, add flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix on low speed until combined, about 15 seconds.1 1/4 cups flour, 1 cup granulated sugar, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoon cocoa powder
- In a small bowl mix together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, vinegar, vanilla, and food coloring. Mix together using a fork or whisk until everything is combined and the food coloring is evenly distributed. Set aside.1/2 cup buttermilk, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Add the butter to the flour mixture and turn onto medium speed for 30-45 seconds until the mixture looks like wet sand and the butter pieces are all smaller than a piece of quinoa.6 Tablespoons butter
- Scrape the sides of the bowl then add the green liquid mixture. Turn the mixer on to a medium speed and combine for a minute, stopping half way to scrape the bowl.1 tsp leaf green gel food coloring
- Evenly distribute the batter between all 16 cupcake tins, making sure to not fill it more than half way or the batter will overflow.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, or until they spring back when lightly touched or a toothpick comes out clean from the center. Allow to cool at room temperature until cool to touch.
- Use a piping bag tip or a spoon to remove a small section of cake from the center of each cupcake, fill with gold sprinkles and then place the removed section back over the hole.gold sprinkles
Frosting
- Beat butter on medium high speed for about 5 minutes or until it is light and fluffy.1/2 cup unsalted butter
- Add cream cheese and beat until smooth.8 ounces cream cheese
- Add the powdered sugar a little at a time until it is all added and frosting is smooth and creamy.4 cups powdered sugar
- Use a piping bag to frost the cupcakes, garnish with sprinkles, then serve!
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