If you are looking for an easy recipe for Green Velvet Cupcakes or a Green Velvet Cake for St. Patrick’s Day, I’ve got you covered! These easy St. Patrick’s Day cupcakes have been of my most popular holiday recipes for years. This simple green velvet recipe is fun, festive and delicious, especially when topped with cream cheese frosting!
Red velvet cake is all the rage for Valentine’s Day, so naturally St. Patrick’s Day brings visions of green velvet cupcakes and green velvet cake. How many things could one make with a batch of green velvet cake batter? How about green velvet cupcakes, green velvet mini cupcakes, green velvet whoopie pies and green velvet cake pops. Oh, and you can also make green velvet cake, of course! These are the perfect easy St. Patrick’s Day desserts.
Green Velvet Cake
For the record I made all of them. Also for the record, yes, I am crazy. I am also Irish, which somehow seems like a good defense for making four different items clock full of green food coloring to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Though most likely it has far more to do with my being crazy.
I’ll be spreading these out over a few different blog posts, but let’s start with making the green velvet cake recipe. Here’s what you need…
Green Velvet Cupcakes
Grease your cake pans, muffin tins, whoopie pie pans, whatever method you decide to go with. Or be crazy like me and do them all. Lightly stir eggs in a medium bowl with whisk. Add in remaining liquid ingredients. Whisk until blended and sit aside. I waited until the very end to add the food coloring, because frankly, that much food coloring scares me and I had to work out the courage to do it.
Place all dry ingredients in your mixing bowl and stir together well.
Now take a deep breath and dump all that food coloring, yes the entire bottle, into the wet ingredients.
Not too bad. But now stir…
Pour your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients and mix on medium-high for about a minute or two until well combined and green as the day is long. Note, this is NOT the time to accidentally crank the Kitcheaid on to high. Unless you want a green, and slightly vinegar smelling kitchen. Avoid that at all costs, nobody needs that much green velvet in their lives.
Look it’s St. Patrick’s Day in my kitchen!
Pour the batter into cake pans or cupcake pans. I did the cake and cupcakes first, and than added 1/4 cup of flour to the remaining batter to thicken it up a bit before putting it in the whoopie pie pan.
Care to lick the spoon? Me, not so much, which is a first in my cake making history.
Baking times will vary based on what you are using. For one 8″ cake pan, it was about 22 minutes for me.
Regular size cupcakes were around 16, mini cupcakes about 13 and the whoopie pie pan was about 13 as well.
Green Velvet Cake And Green Velvet Cupcakes Recipes
Ingredients
CAKE
- 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 Tablespoon cocoa
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup oil
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 Tablespoon vinegar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 oz green food coloring
CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
- 1 package of softened cream cheese
- 1/4 cup softened butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 bag powdered sugar 2 lb bag
- Milk as needed
Instructions
CAKE
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Grease your cake pans, muffin tins, whoopie pie pans, whatever method you decide to go with.
- Lightly stir eggs in a medium bowl with whisk. Add in remaining liquid ingredients. Whisk until blended, the stir in food coloring and sit aside.
- Place all dry ingredients in your mixing bowl and stir together well.
- Pour your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients and mix on medium-high for about a minute or two until well combined.
- Pour the batter into cake pans or cupcake pans.
- Baking times will vary based on what you are using. For one 8″ cake pan, it was about 22 minutes. Regular size cupcakes were around 16 minutes, mini cupcakes and whoopie pie pans were both about 13 minutes.
FROSTING
- Cream together cream cheese, butter and vanilla in a bowl until smooth. Gradually add in powdered sugar and continue mixing. Add in milk as needed to reach the desired consistency. Store frosting and frosted cupcakes in refrigerator.
Notes
You can frost straight from the bowl, though I use my handy Ziploc bag to pipe on my frosting.
Now frost and decorate until your little heart is content. I used about half of my frosting for the green velvet cupcakes and green velvet whoopie pies, and put the remainder in the fridge to be used to make green velvet cake pops. Here are some of the super sweet cupcakes…
The cute shamrock sprinkles and fun cupcake liners!
Check out how pretty and green they are. My daughter was thrilled! Well at least until I stopped her mid-cupcake realizing that I hadn’t taken a picture of the great green insides of these babies.
And for those that would like something a little smaller – green velvet mini cupcakes…
And best of all, my kitchen somehow came out of this without any big globs of green anywhere. Whew.
These velvet cake recipes are so much fun. Are you looking for a different color velvet than green velvet? I have some yummy options for you in every color of the velvet rainbow, if that’s a thing. First up red velvet cookie bars.
How about pink velvet cupcakes!
Sweetapolita has a gorgeous purple velvet cake.
Sprinkle Bakes has some stunning blue velvet cupcakes.
I even have some orange velvet cupcakes!
And if you look hard enough, you can even find a yellow velvet cake.
Now that we’ve covered the velvet rainbow, check out green velvet whoopie pies!
jenna laughs says
Love this idea! So bright and green, very festive. Mixing red velvet and green velvet cupcakes in an arrangement at Christmastime would be so cute.
Happy When Not Hungry says
Wow these cupcakes are beautiful! How creative to make green velvet too. Yum!
Our Eyes Eat First says
just adorable! i love that you made use of the batter to make a cake, cupcakes, mini cupcakes and whoopie pies! great job!
rawfoodhaven says
I am thrilled as your daughter with this green velvet cup cakes.
[email protected]'s Easy Cooking says
Oh wow..what a perfection! Love how you made those cupcakes!
Christi says
Thanks so much everyone! I still need to make the cake pops, I have the cake and frosting ready to go. I need to figure a way to turn everything I bake or cook into four things, how great would that be??? 🙂
Jenna – yes, I was thinking it would be darling for Christmas when I was making them. It’s the perfect green for it.
Kimberly(Unrivaledkitch) says
these are so cute. green is awesome, the cake looks really moist and wonderful
love it! thanks for sharing
Lauren @ L-Mo Cooks says
I love this idea! All I did was make green frosting. Wonderful, wonderful!
Claire says
Lol you did go a little crazy with the green! But that’s okay, its nearly St. Patty’s! I’m going to make a few green things myself!
Christi says
Claire, I did – no doubt! I am still not sure if four items was a really great idea or a really bad one. But I know for certain it was a REALLY green one!
[email protected] says
Awesome!! I love the ones with the M&M’s! And your pictures are great too!
I’m visiting from Flickr, so glad I found you. I’ll follow you on Twitter and FB too!
I’d love for you to join us sometime on Cupcake Tuesday!
~Liz
susan says
such a great shade of green. better start planning my st. paddy’s day treats!
Borislava says
I feel deeply attracted from that vivid color! As I’m not Irish, I’ll need another excuse to bake these bit weird cupcakes 😉 Help!
Christi says
Borislava – go with green being a lucky color, or the color of money. Or the color of spring! I can come up with as many excuses as you’d like! 🙂
Odelia says
Green Velvet Cake was very delicious! Thanks for the recipe. I really enjoy the flavor of the cake with the Cream Cheese Frosting. I was searching the internet for more delicious bake goods and I ended up on a site that had this Red Velvet Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting which was also delicious. The site is http://www.fourgreensteps.com/community/recipes/desserts-a-goodies-/red-velvet-cupcakes-with-buttercream-frosting
Lauren says
What a great idea. I have an obsession with red velvet cupcakes, so I must try these. Thanks.
Medifast Coupons says
Perfect green cupcakes, you did a great job with these. Look forward to seeing more of your St.Pat’s recipes and trying them all out.
Vicki @ WITK says
There are hilariously green, I love it! A coworker recently requested red velvet cupcakes, then bought me red and green food coloring 🙂 I’m thinking this will be a great way to use it!
Leanne @ Healthful Pursuit says
they are SO green and beautiful! Great work 🙂 I just love your pictures. The lighting in them is fantastic, what do you use?
Christi says
Leanne, thanks so much. And yes, they are SO green!!! My daughter asked if she could have one last night, “if I brush my teeth right afterward…”. Good call for an eight year old!
You don’t see all my bad photos! 🙂 For the prep/baking shots, I use a Canon 50D with a 50mm 1.8 lens – using natural light and usually a pretty high ISO. For the finished product, I mostly shoot outdoors on a patio, using a Canon 100mm 2.8 lens. Some days the light plays wonderfully with me, others not so much. The sun is moving just enough now to challenge me to need to use different times/spots. But I love photography, and I love having a subject that can’t crawl or run away. 🙂
St. Patrick's Day Cupcake Wrappers says
These cupcakes are so fun! Thanks for the idea – I’m thinking of even adding these cupcake wrappers to them – http://www.cupcakelinerswrappers.com/st-patricks-day-cupcake-wrappers-liners. Thanks!
Lisa @ Sweet as Sugar Cookies says
These look so cool! Love all that beautiful green color. I have a sweet treat linky party going on at my blog and I’d like to invite you to stop by and link your cupcakes up. http://sweet-as-sugar-cookies.blogspot.com/2011/03/sweets-for-saturday-7.html
A little bit of everything says
My favorite color is green is these are so cute. I have to make myself some. thanks for the idea.
hope you’ll have a wonderful Monday
[email protected] says
My Mom’s B-day is St. Patty’s Day and I was trying to think of something to make for her. Green velvet cupcakes sound like a fun idea. Your frosting is so white? Do you use clear vanilla?
Christi says
Hi Jenn – I actually just use the regular vanilla extract from Costco. I have used the clear though, and it certainly is great for keeping the frosting white. I think the cream cheese in this recipe helps lend that creamy white appearance. I bet your mom would love these!
briarrose says
Love the green coloring. What a great St. Patty’s Day treat.
Maggie says
These look great! I’m going to make them on Friday. About how many regular sized cupcakes does the recipe yield?
Christi says
Maggie – I think you could easily get 24 cupcakes. I was surprised how much I mad with that batter, an 8″ round cake (one layer), six regular cupcakes, six mini cupcakes and I think six whoopie pies. It’s a good size amount of cake batter. Good luck, let me know how they turn out! Just wait – they are so GREEN!!!
Nutmeg Nanny says
Yum! Your cupcakes looks great! I made green velvet cupcakes last year…they were a big hit 🙂
Joan says
Such great ideas and beautiful pictures. Just wondering if you meant 8 oz. of cream cheese for the frosting. Just want to be sure it get it correct. Thanks!
Christi says
Hi Joan – yes – sorry I left that out! 🙂
Saji says
Perfect treat for a perfect day….Loved it
thesaji.blogspot.com
Stephanie says
I have these in the oven right now! I can’t wait to try them! Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Rose Plated says
I love green! And this cup cake makes my saliva drooling at the side of my mouth. The name of the recipe is also cute like the red velvet cupcakes. LOL.
Piano Schoenhut says
This is really mouth watering and indulging too. I will try this for our environmental treat for our volunteers in our community service. It is perfect since green is environmental.
Claire @ keepsmeoutofmischief says
I love that you couldn’t bring yourself to lick the spoon! It would be a first for me too! They look splendid, can’t believe I’ve got to wait almost a year to try them!
Jess (The Crafty Librarian) says
Hi there! I just found your blog from googling “Green cupcakes”. Thanks for your tutorial, I’m going to (attempt) to make these for Earth Day next week. Wish me luck!
Mousse Cakes says
These are adorable cupcakes! Green is one of my favorite colors and I would love to try this cupcake recipe of yours very soon. Thank you so much!
Amanda Huston says
I made this for a party, they turned out great and everyone wanted more! The only thing that I did different is skip out on the whole bottle of dye and instead I used Wilton’s food gel. I only needed a bit and it turned out the same color.
china says
AWESOME!!
Adam says
Green velvet cake should of been made as mint cake
Chloe says
Could one perhaps mix in a packet of greengage jelly (jell-O) instead of the green colouring? I guess the packets of jelly also have food colouring so it’s all the same. Beautiful little cupcakes – Congrats!
Michelle says
OMG! I love this recipie! I live in Mexico, so I made it and red velvet for mexican independence day. It turned out perfectly! Thank you for sharing.
Panmeiz Cuisine says
Hi there! am making this today for my brother’s birthday 🙂 you have no clue how thrilled i was to find your blog. I wanted to bake a velvet cake with green color and wasn’t sure if anyone had ever made it…i hit search and voila! your site popped up and OMG i love it. Thanks for sharing…following you henceforth. Will make my cake post sometime this week…do come and visit when you can.
Lori says
Thank you for sharing, looks amazing! Such beautiful bright pictures!
Megan says
My older sisters school colors are green and orange!I’ve been looking for something like this for a long time! I made these for the field hockey team and they were so cute and I put orange frosting on top! Great recipe! Thanks for sharing!
Erica says
I am totally inspired for my twins 2nd birthday, which just happens to fall on St. Patricks day! Thanks for all the great ideas, I think I’ll make a test batch soon! 🙂
Jamie says
These green velvet cupcakes sound so good.. thank you for sharing the recipe! I hope it’s okay, I’ve featured them on a St. Patrick’s Day creative and colorful food hub here:
http://jamiebrock.hubpages.com/hub/Colorful-and-Creative-Food-Ideas-for-St-Patricks-Day
Thanks for sharing!
ButterYum says
These are soooo cool. I have to find that green food coloring at the store. Love,love, love them!!
🙂
ButterYum
Caileigh says
hi, how many cupcakes does the recipe make?
Christi says
Calleigh, I believe it was about 24.
Sue says
Great green color! Will try these for St. Patrick’s Day. Thanks for sharing!
Maria says
I have a question about the cake recipe. When it calls for vinegar, is that regular white vinegar or cider vinegar? I am going to make this cake for my son in just a few days. He will be fifteen on St. Patrick’s Day and this would be the perfect cake.
Christi says
Maria, I used white vinegar. I’ve actually never purchased a bottle of apple cider vinegar, and really have no clue how/what it’s used for. 🙂
Heidi says
Mine fell in the middle, even though they’re done! I halved the recipe, but I just read through it about 10 times to see what I missed. I still think it’s my mistake. I think I’ll just ice these babies and move on… we love red velvet, and anything smeared with cream cheese icing is a winner:)
Christi says
Heidi – hmmm. Sometimes baking can be finicky – from the temperature of the ingredients put in, the general temp, variations in ovens… I have recipes that work fine three times and get weird on the fourth. I have to admit, whenever I have anything sink, I look at the bright side – more frosting! 🙂 Hope they were still tasty for you! And yes, cream cheese iced ANYTHING is downright awesome!
Amber says
Hi, I’m really excited to try your cupcake and cake pop recipes this weekend for the St. Paddy’s day party that my BF and I are hosting. I was wondering how much cream cheese you used in the frosting. Was it 1 ounce of cream cheese or 1- 8 ounce package of cream cheese? Thanks for your help.
honeythumbs says
YOU USE A KITCHEN AID!! o___________________x
Rachel Rivas says
so it is 8 oz of cream cheese?, i thought 1 was odd but it hadn’t been changed so i thought it was right
Christi says
Rachel – ah, yes, 1 PACKAGE not one ounce! Sorry! 🙂
Linda says
Great ideas! But, it’s hard to believe you’re Irish if you call it St.Patty’s Day! What a sin! It’s St. Paddy’s Day 🙂 Always has been, always will be 🙂
Christi says
Linda – ha – this year I’m only calling it St. Patrick’s Day – I ruffled too many feathers last year with calling it the wrong name. 😉
MrsMogee says
OMG I just made these! They are SOOOO good! I made cupcakes, and they actually took about 20minutes to bake, but WOW. I LOVE them!
Rachel Rivas says
i made the cupcakes, mine took about 16 mins…i’m having a problem with the frosting, mine is too thin and runny, how do i thicken it…i already added some more powdered sugar and cream cheese, but i still can’t pipe it onto the cupcakes like i wanted
Christi says
Rachel, if you’ve already added more powdered sugar I’d try one of two things – even more (that’s how I always get mine to the consistency I want) and/or pop it in the fridge for a little bit. I find with cream cheese, the temperature of it when making frosting can have a big impact on it becoming runny.
Hailey says
These cupcakes are simply delicious!!! I made 75 (yes, 75!) for my aunt’s school and everyone loved them… But let me tell you, they are REALLY green. If you don’t fancy the color green you might want to think about making these with a different food coloring. But they are definitely worth making! And your cream cheese frosting recipe is marvelous. Thanks for sharing these great recipes!
Bonnie Banters says
So cute and luscious! Thanks!
Marianne says
I made some last night, and sampled one immediately. I ended up making giant cupcakes. Only made 21 somehow and somehow managed to stain my white granite counter a bit. D’oh.
Kiran Gill says
Hi! Can I use corn oil? Or does it have to be canola oil?
Thank you!!
Christi says
Kiran, I would think so, but I haven’t tried so I can’t say for certain.
esther says
ok so we haven’t tasted yet but my 4 year old son was helping me. He loved the smell of the vanilla batter until we put the vinegar in! i’m sure he may not even want to taste it now so i’m crossing my fingers. Why vinegar? i’ve never heard of using it in baked goods. However I hardly ever make things from scratch nowadays, so that’s probably why 🙂
Jessica Dressler says
Thank you so much for this recipe! My father-in-law’s birthday is on St. Paddy’s Day and we all gather at his house for dinner. I made these cupcakes and they were a big hit! I even put a candle in each cupcake! They were all gone before I could blink! Thanks again!
bakeries Knoxville TN says
This green velvet cupcake is indeed wonderful! It is surely a great offering for St. Patrick’s Day. The preparation is very easy to follow. A lot of baking enthusiasts will surely be thrilled to try this out. Thanks for sharing.
Rebecca says
I was thinking of making these for a wedding where the colors are green and gold. But her green is a little on the blue side. Do you think adding a few drops of blue would be a good idea?
Jane says
May i know the size of cup u used? Thanks 🙂
Christi says
For the cupcakes? Standard and mini. 🙂
jtfghswMD says
great cupcakes!!!!
Superhero Mom says
This will be great! My nearly 6-yr old daughter is a huge Green Lantern fan! Guess what kind of cake she’s getting for her birthday! 🙂
Jodi says
Making this for my best-friend’s groom. A Green Bay Packers groom cake to be exact. Thanks so much for this!
Greg says
Hi! Roughly how many cupcakes would the given amount of ingredients churn out? 🙂
Talking about regular size cupcake trays.
Christi says
Greg, it was a pretty standard recipe, so about 24 cupcakes. 🙂
Sara says
I am really looking forward to trying these for a St. Patricks Day party that I am going to! They look GREAT! And I love the green color! I am planning on making them with Bailey’s Irish Buttercream Frosting recipie that I found though… Hope it turns out good…. I also had a question, I have never made Red Velevet from scratch so I was not sure is all you do add red food coloring instead of green to the same ingrediants as you have here?
Jeanna says
Love this! I have been going to do this, too. In fact, I’ll save about 1/3 of the batter to add mint to, since I & my mother in the nursing home love mint flavored things – the rest of the family don’t. Anyway, I often in March add green food coloring to cookies & cakes. I also love the Shamrock Shakes at McDonald’s. 🙂
Lesa says
I was thinking of making Green Velvet Cupcakes for St. Patrick’s Day and saw all the comments on this page. Not a one that I saw said anything about the green food coloring making your tongue or lips turn green. Can I assume that doesn’t happen? I know it doesn’t with Red Velvet. My daughter made a Blue Velvet at 4th of July but used the gel instead of food coloring and the guests ended up with blue lips.
Christi says
Lesa, I haven’t had that happen (though I have noticed anything blue seems to have that impact). I think, and this is just my theory, that when you bake something (the cupcakes) the food coloring does not tend to come off the way it does if it’s not baked (the frosting). I do not heavily tint my frosting for this reason, but I’ve yet to have issues with my baked goods. I also get to the color I need then call it good and don’t go overboard. Hope that helps!
Natalie says
Totally using this idea!
Tara says
does anyone know if i can use apple cider vinegar in this recipe instead of white vinegar?
MaggieG says
It is not St. Patty’s Day. Please can you and every American who calls it this – stop. It’s St. Patrick’s Day or at a push Paddy’s Day – if you are Irish.
Lesa says
Christie, THANKS! I’m baking them tonight 🙂
@Tara, my Red Velvet recipe I use calls for Apple Cider Vinegar and I’m using the same just changing the coloring.
amber says
where is michaels where you got the shamrock sprinkles??
?
Jaime says
Hey Christi! Your cupcakes are so gorgeous! I tried making them today and they came out terrible. They were gummy and the taste was not “Red velvet” like. Wondering where I went wrong? Any tips? I followed the recipe exactly but not sure where I went wrong!
Nora says
I used this recipe for cupcakes and it made 24 cupcakes, and took 20 minutes each batch to bake 🙂 Thanks!
Jenny says
YUMMY!!! I made them for St. Patrick’s Day! They were awesome, everyone loved them… Thank you!
Ana says
I made mini cupcakes for Bingo nite. They look like a field of clover in the gold paper cups I used. Used a candy shamrock to decorate the top. The cake itself is very tasty and not to sweet and very moist will definitely add this recipe to my files. Thank you for sharing.
Erica says
Thank you for sharing this crazy delicious recipe!! I doubled it for a 3-year-old’s St. Patrick’s Day birthday party. It made about 45 cupcakes. They didn’t rise as much as I expected, though I forgot the vinegar so maybe that is why. They still rose into nice domes and were a beautiful green. I took the food coloring down by a bit: 1.5 ounces for a doubled batch. Was the perfect green! The frosting made a TON. Obviously didn’t need to double it. Oh, well, now I will have to make something to frost. I added more cream cheese and less sugar because I thought it was way too sweet and I prefer being able to taste the tangy-ness of the cream cheese. These were a massive hit at the party; they were so rich and yummy!! Will def. be making again and checking out the rest of your blog. Thank you!!!
Rebecca Mealey says
Very nice! Great instructions and photos, I am going to use your recipe for a plant cell cake for my granddaughters, and I will link to your blog if that is OK.
Jen says
Love these cupcakes! I featured them in a round up of St. Patrick’s Day cookies and cupcakes on my blog. Cheers. http://www.kitchencounterchronicle.com/2014/02/st-patricks-day-cookies-and-cupcakes.html
Christi says
Thanks so much Jen!
Lisa King says
Great idea! When I sent the link to my daughter, she commented, “why not blue for Elvis’s birthday””. I guess blue velvet is kind of like blue suede…
Kim says
I wish I could figure out why mine never have a rounded top? Always come out flat! and the top is hard not soft 🙁
Christi says
Kim, I’ve found mine get a nicer top when I have my rack lower in my oven. If yours is high or in the middle, try moving it down a bit and see if that makes a difference for you.
Alicia says
Sorry, can’t help myself. It’s “Paddy’s” not “Patty’s”. From “Padraig” not “Patricia”
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/lifestyle/2014/03/please-dont-call-it-st-pattys-day/
Anne says
I thought 2 T, dark cacoa was too little; the flour mixture was barely tinted brown. So I checked against the red plaid “Better Homes & Garden (ringed) Cookbook’s” red velvet recipe, calling for 1/2 C. dark cocoa. So this is what I’ve added. I want to thank-you for such an adorable cupcake for St. Pat’s, in this case before then. It was exactly what I was looking for in my search. A very dear, elderly friend of mine sufferred breaking her hip, as he son-in-law fell atop her. She in undergoing PT in a rehab center, but her spirits are low, missing her home. She is all German, but I told her everyone is Irish on St.Pat’s. I’m bringing the cupcakes in for her and the rehab staff, along with silly things, like a cloverleaf scarf for her to wear, cheapie shamrock earrings to wear, shamrock glasses! All for fun, and all to lift her spirits. Cupcakes baking. Thanks for the cute idea!
Jackie says
I had a recipe for Valentine Day that was Red Velvet Oreo cookie style cookie. Any suggestions for GREEN Cookies (oreo style)? TIA
Christi says
Jackie, I’m not sure if I understand correctly, but if you are looking to make a green oreo style cookie vs a red, you can most likely use the recipe you worked with before and change the food coloring. The color in all of the “velvet” recipes, in my opinion, is just for looks and has no impact on the taste, so switch to any color you like.
Joanne says
These turned out perfect for St. Patrick’s Day 2018. Will use recipe for Easter but a pastel color.