Home Run Baseball Cupcakes (and a cake mix secret!)

By srumbel

First, I made regular cupcakes. I was just going to follow the directions on the back of a cake mix for my cupcakes, but then I saw this secret for making perfect cupcakes, so I gave it a whirl! The cupcakes turned out moist and delicious.
from sixsistersstuff

Ingredients

• Ingredients:
• Perfect Cake Mix Cupcakes
• 1 box cake mix (any flavor will work)
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup butter, melted (not margarine)
• 1 cup water
• The Perfect Buttercream Icing Recipe and Cupcake Tip
• 1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine
• 4 cups (1 lb) sifted confectioners sugar
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• Food coloring

Preparation

Step 1

Melt the butter in the microwave. Add cake mix (do not add the ingredients as called for on the box!), eggs, and water to the butter in a large bowl. Mix on low for one minute, then on high for one minute. The batter will be thick and creamy (instead of runny). Scoop batter into cupcake papers (I used an ice cream scoop- you want them to be about 2/3 full). Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Cool and then frost.

Frosting
Cream butter and shortening with electric mixer. Add vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at a medium speed until light and fluffy.

If you need to thin this icing, add a small amount of light corn syrup.

For best results, keep icing bowl in refrigerator when not in use. It can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks. Rewhip before using. Yields 3 cups.

I whipped up a batch of our Perfect Buttercream Frosting and split it in half. I left half of the frosting white and then added green food coloring to the other half. I then frosted half of the cupcakes green and topped with them green tinted coconut (Here is a tutorial on how to tint coconut if you want to do it! It really is easy!) to give it a "grassy baseball field" look. :)
I frosted the remaining cupcakes with the white frosting and then using my red frosting in my bag, I piped on the red baseball stitching. Quick, easy, and it turned out pretty cute!!

For the second baseball cupcake, I took a small amount of the white frosting I had left and put it in a bowl, then mixed it with red food coloring until I got the red color I wanted. I put that red frosting in a small Ziploc bag and snipped off a tiny corner (you could also use a fancy decorating tip, but I hate cleaning those bags and tips out! I prefer a ziploc bag for simple things like this).