Captivating Campground Cupcake Cake

You’ve probably noticed that I have been getting ready to show you this grand finale of a Campground Cupcake Cake. Maybe you are wondering how I happened to be making a cupcake cake with a camping theme? Well…..

My daughter’s birthday this year fell when she was at camp. So I offered to bring cupcakes for all the campers so that I could see her on her birthday… and that ended up being 170 cupcakes!! Whew!

I began planning for it weeks ahead of time. I bought the supplies, and I drew out a rough draft of a plan.

I modeled it after the triangle shaped lake at the campground. I had never been to the camp, but Google maps helped. And then I asked questions of people who had been there before me.

I made chocolate, vanilla, and gluten-free cupcakes, using 7 cake mixes. Most of them were round, but I made a few square ones for the road.

I staged them in my living room the day before. I was going to be transporting all of these cupcakes 3 hours, and setting them up in 80-90 degree heat! That was a dilemma! I asked some friends if they had any ideas, and one of them offered to lend me a gigantic cooler and some extra containers. So I refrigerated them all overnight (yes, I managed to fit them all into my fridge!) and they were cold when they went into the cooler for the trip.

There is a road beside the lake. For the road, I used blue with a little black to make the gray frosting.

I used a really wide tip to frost the road. If I had been able to assemble it on site, I would have completely covered the cupcakes like a road. I added pieces of yellow gum for road stripes! [I didn’t know it, but it was a gravel road…. oh well!]

I made and colored all the frosting. To make the lake water look greenish, I dribbled green food coloring down the inside of the icing bag before filling it with blue frosting.

I made chocolate frosting for the chocolate cupcakes, for the base of the forest. This was as much as I could assemble ahead of time.

The cupcake choices were: a gluten free road, vanilla blue lake, or chocolate forest!

I had made over 70 pretzel trees, and pretzel cabins ahead of time.

The camp has a zipline across the lake, so I made a pretzel tower and a zipline, too! I actually made two towers, so that I had a back up.

It took me a day and a half to make this camp themed cake (and do all the dishes)!

Everyone loved the Campground Cupcake Cake, and I hope you do, too!

Happy Birthday, Daughter!