Camouflage Cupcakes

As I mentioned, my brother-in-law serves in the MN National Guard.  The logo is the red bull.  So for the cupcakes (to accompany the soldier cake) I used the logo to be placed on top.  I first printed out the logo...next time I'll print a sheet full of the logo so that I don't have to move the paper quite so often.

I melted candy melts (red first) and used filled the squeeze bottle.  A piping bag would work just fine, but using the bottle, I am able to stop flow a lot quicker. 

I placed the logo under a piece of waxed paper and piped the red chocolate.

I did this for 60 bulls. 

Then I came back and filled in the black portion of the logo with dark cocoa candy melts.  You can lay this chocolate right on top of the red, but move quickly so you aren't moving it around much once the red has remelted due to the hot chocolate on top.  Be sure to fill well to reduce the number of air bubbles.

When you peel it off the wax paper you will have your design. 

I was able to stack them with wax paper in between in a 9 x 13 cake pan with lid.  I kept it in a cool spot until I needed them (about a week), but I'm pretty sure you could do these months ahead of time.

 Two days before the event.  I made some vanilla cake batter and left 1/3 as is, added a bit of cocoa powder to another 1/3 and added even more cocoa powder to the last 1/3.  I now had 3 different shades of brown. You could use greens and browns if you wanted, but since Alex will be serving in the desert, I wanted to go with desert camouflage.  I put the three colors of batter into three piping bags (I suppose you could use a spoon, this just seemed easier).

I used the piping bags to fill a little of each color into each cup.  I didn't really follow any particular pattern, simply tried to keep like colors away from like colors. 

 This is what they looked like after baking.  Pretty subtle, but I was pleased.

 The day of the event.  I made some white icing (maybe tan would have been better) and piped a swirl on top of each with the 1M tip.  I placed my chocolate logo on top.

I lined them up like little soldiers.  I was very pleased with the overall look...and they tasted even better!