To bake orange and black pumpkin cupcakes you’ll need two types of cake batter. You can use your favorite chocolate and vanilla cake recipes, or you can use boxed cake mixes like I did. I used Duncan Hines dark chocolate fudge and Duncan Hines classic white. One box of cake mix can make 12-24 cupcakes, so this is a fair warning that you’re going to get a lot of cupcakes from this method.

Mix together 3 eggs, ½ a cup of oil and one cup of water with one box of cake mix in a large bowl. In a separate bowl do the same with your second box of cake mix.

In your bowl of chocolate cake mix, add black food coloring to make it nice and dark. This will help your black stripes look darker instead of brown once the cake is baked.

In your bowl of vanilla cake mix, add orange food coloring to make it a bright orange color. I used this brand of food coloring for both white and orange. Using the right brand of food coloring helps ensure the flavor doesn’t change and the colors are vibrant.

Now that both cake batter mixes are prepped, spoon the batter into two separate ziploc bags, one bag of black and one bag of orange. Try to squeeze all the air out of your plastic bag before sealing it shut. Cut the tip of the bag off so you can control how much comes out into your cupcake liner.

Alternate a small squeeze of black cake with a small squeeze of orange cake in each cupcake liner until your cupcake liners are all about ¾ full of cake batter and then bake them for 16-20 minutes at 350 Fahrenheit depending on your cake mix instructions and oven.

Smaller amounts of batter will give you more, smaller stripes. If you pour a large amount in at a time you’ll only end up with one or two stripes.

Take your cupcakes out of the muffin tin and cool your them on a wire rack and don't start decorating until they are completely cooled.

Make your vanilla buttercream frosting with 1 cup of butter and about 4 cups of icing sugar, 1 tsp of vanilla and 2 tsp of cream or milk. Blend it with a hand mixer or stand mixer for two minutes or until it’s fully blended and no sugar crystals remain.

Take out three tablespoons of frosting in a small bowl and add green food coloring. For the rest of your white frosting, take a second bowl and add orange food coloring. I used this same brand of food coloring for my icing as I did with my cake batter.

Use a Wilton 4B piping tip to pipe your orange buttercream frosting on the edges of your cupcake first. Then create your next ridge of frosting inside the outer edge. Pipe a third layer on your second and a stripe of frosting on the center to cover any final gaps.

As an optional step, sprinkle orange sanding sugar on top of the cupcakes to give your pumpkins an extra magical simmer.

Chop large pretzel rods into smaller pieces and insert them into the top of your cupcake to look like a pumpkin ‘stem’. Then use a small round tip (#1 or #2) to pipe a bit of green frosting near the stem to look like a pumpkin vine.