How To Decorate Campfire Cupcakes (Easy Tutorial)

Fun campfire cupcakes are adorable and the perfect dessert for a weekend in the backyard (or at the lake) or to share with your neighbors and friends. Camping-themed cupcakes are ideal for all summer long!

Camping is one of my family’s favorite activities. We love going to the lake, pitching the tent, and getting that campfire going. There isn’t anything better than listening to the crackling of the fire while relaxing in a comfy chair.

If you are throwing a summer party, a camping party, or just long for a campfire backyard adventure, these campfire cupcakes (you could also call them bonfire cupcakes) are exactly what you need!

They look like they may be a little difficult to make, but they are actually SUPER simple and will have all your favorite people wondering where you’ve been hiding your cupcake decorating skills (even if you don’t have any)!

A tantalizing tray of campfire cupcakes will make you want to pack up the camping gear and head back out to your favorite spot to enjoy another kind of glorious campfire.

If you want more easy kid-approved cupcake recipes, try my Sunshine Cupcakes.

Ingredients Needed

Here’s everything you’ll need to make these fun campfire cupcakes!

• Chocolate Cake Mix – plus additional ingredients needed (such as eggs and vegetable oil) for cake mix for basic chocolate cupcakes. OR prepare your favorite chocolate cupcake recipe.
• Buttercream Icing – colored gray, red, orange, and yellow buttercream (or white frosting colored with food coloring – I recommend gel-based colors)
• Mini Pretzel Sticks
• Miniature Marshmallow – white or colored

Kitchen Tools Needed:

• Wilton 1M Large Star Tip
• Piping Bags – or plastic wrap or a resealable plastic bag with the tip cut off
• Large piece of plastic wrap
• Cupcake pan

How To Make Campfire Cupcakes

Here’s the process for decorating these chocolate cupcakes. Prepare to amaze your friends and family!

Step 1

Pre-heat oven and make the boxed cake mix according to the directions, mixing the dry ingredients and wet ingredients together.

Fill the cupcake liners in regular-size muffin tins, and bake according to the directions on the box. Cool completely before decorating campfire cupcakes.

Step 2

Next, make rows of red frosting, orange frosting, and yellow frosting on large sheets of plastic wrap for your frosting flame. (see the picture!)

Step 3

Roll the plastic into a tube, leaving one end open and the other end for twisting.

Step 4

Now you are going to place the tube into a piping bag and put the 1M star tip on the small open end.

Step 5

Next, place the gray frosting into a piping bag and pipe small dollops for the “rocks” all around the outer edges on the top of cupcake.

Step 6

Take pretzel sticks and break them in half. Poke four of the pretzel pieces into the top of the cupcake to support the “flames”.

Step 7

Use the combined frosting to frost cupcakes and pipe large dabs of frosting as flickering flames of a fire inside the rock ring in the center of the cupcake.

Step 8

Finally, with a pretzel stick, break it in half. Poke small marshmallows on the broken end of the pretzels. Lay the marshmallow stick across the “fiery frosting” at an angle.

Now doesn’t that just look like an adorable campfire? Just looking at them makes me want to whip out the s’mores ingredients and start roasting some marshmallows!

Take these cute cupcakes on your next camping trip, or enjoy them as you dream about your next camping trip! Happy Baking!

Aren’t these campfire treats adorable? You’re going to earn some mad cupcake decorating compliments from them! And they’re the perfect cupcakes – don’t the colored pipe swirls make a terrific fire effect perfect for themed parties? 

Campfire Cupcakes Expert Notes And Tips

Cuteness overload! Here are a few tips to help your summer treats turn out perfectly every time.

• If your preference is to use your own made-from-scratch cake mix for those cupcakes, use your favorite flavor. I like choosing chocolate for this sweet treat because it looks like the dirt under a campfire ring. 😉

• Use a gluten-free cake mix and pretzels for a gluten-free dessert.

• Mini marshmallows are the perfect size for the marshmallow sticks!

• You can use any brand of cake mix you prefer but just remember that each brand may require different additional ingredients that you will want to make sure you have available.

Variations To Try

• Lay 3 pretzel sticks flat in a criss-cross pattern on top of the cupcake before adding the frosting to look like firewood.

• Add a yummy little surprise in the center of the cupcake. Core out the center of the cupcake and add in some fruit filling, sprinkles, mini M&M’s, or marshmallow creme before frosting.

• If time is limited and you won’t have a chance to bake cupcakes, pick up some muffins or unfrosted cupcakes at the store.

• If you want to make them look even more “authentic,” place a few edible chocolate rocks on top of the pipe rocks. Insert candy pieces all around the cupcakes as the perfect addition.

• If you want more depth of flavor, add a little vanilla extract to the cake mix (about 1 tsp should be enough)!

Cute Little Campfire Cupcakes FAQs

Here are some questions that I frequently see readers ask about these camping-themed cupcakes. If you have a question and don’t see it answered below, please leave it in the comments.

More Yummy Kid-Friendly Cupcake Recipes To Try

• Beach Pull-Apart Cupcake Cake
• Earth Day Cupcakes
• Encanto Movie-Themed Cupcakes
• Easy DIY Speckled Mermaid Cupcakes
• Jurassic Dinosaur Cupcakes

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