Orange Cupcake

Is it an Orange? Is it a cupcake?

So when I was picking oranges, I thought I’d be awesome, and with there being 6 people in this house hold, I’d jack a bunch of oranges and bring some home right. Well, we’ve been slowly working away at them, and have now narrowed the herd down to just half a fridge drawer full.

I decided to whip out some ol’ Boy Scout knowledge, so… those of you who have served with me in the past and remember this technique, feel free to skip, for those who want to learn continue on…

One of my old Advisers and I were doing a cooking demonstration for cub scouts in which we taught some cool little camp out tricks (like boiling an egg in a paper cup). The orange cupcake was one of the things we taught. I’d been wanting to show Adam how to do it for awhile now (since I brought the oranges home) but as busy as my days are here… just never got around to it. And so, while the family was at basketball tonight and I was home doing laundry, I figured I’d just do it and explain the process later. This is great for kids especially while camping, it’s ok to do a trial run by yourself first (in fact, that’s kind of what tonight was about to make sure I remember)

What you need:
*Oranges
*Vanilla (can use orange also, but it might be a bit much) dry cake mix
*Cutting utensil
*Cutting surface
*Backing pan (indoors) OR still hot coals (outdoors)





Step 1:


Slice all the oranges you are going to use in half preferably like the equator (and not like the international date line).



If a slice has seeds, no worries, it won’t make too much of a difference later on.


Step 2:

With a small spoon, begin scooping out the innards of the orange.



Feel free to leave as much juice in the remaining bowl as possible.



You do not have to perfectly get ALL of the orange out, but, it is somewhat preferred later on during the eating process. I happen to be a bit CDO (like OCD, but in alphabetical order like it should be) when it comes to cleaning the gunk out of stuff, so I take everything out if I can. BUT SAVE THE INNARDS! We need that juice remember.



Be very careful however while doing this process. Remember that these skin bowls need to keep structural integrity, a tiny crack near the edge might be alright, but anything more than this mess up would be highly unadvisable:




Step 3:



Ok, remember that package of Vanilla cake mix we discussed earlier? Ya, time to open it. I thought of this in hind sight (too late to help myself) but feel free to pour the mix into a bowl, it will make life easier if you are dealing with a group of kids to just take a spoonful or so out like that than to reach in and out of a plastic bag in a box.

If being cute and dealing with kids (or just being very detailed) you will take two good sized small spoonfuls (or one big spoon full) of the cake mix and dump it into an orange bowl.




Step 4:

After all the bowls have been powdered, add orange juice as needed back into the bowl. Start with just a bit, remember, you can always add more powder if you need to. You might want to stir with either the small end of a spoon handle or a chopstick, a full on spoon might be a bit large, and send the batter flying various directions as opposed to mixing it just right.



I can guarantee you won’t get the batter right on the first go, so just have some fun with it. Add as much mix and juice as need be until it is just the way you need it to be. Also remember, things like cake expand, so don’t get to carried away with adding.



If you happen to be just cheating because you are doing such a vast number, feel free to follow the batter recipe on the box of whatever brand you are using in a bowl on the side, substituting orange juice for whatever liquid they want you to use and then pour the batter back into the cups (only for indoors, while camping this way is much more fun)


Step 5:



You should now have all the oranges mixed just right. If you are doing this indoors with an oven, than you should have preheated it to about 190 C or 370 F. I baked these for about 16 minutes, but that might have been able to be in for another minute or so. Just depends on how you like your cake. If you are doing this out doors or camping, you can use a grill or camp fire bit but only with warm coals, not a raging fire. A Dutch oven may also be used in this situation, but that is almost like saying the Pope is Catholic, a Dutch oven can be used in just about any camp food situation.




Step 6:

Take either out of the oven or off the coals. Let cool. Enjoy.



If you happen to have frosting or anything of the sort, feel free to add. An added treat might be coloring vanilla frosting orange and making the appearance that it is just a deformed orange as opposed to a cupcake in an orange. I didn’t have that much frosting, nor was I plentiful on patience tonight, so I didn’t do it, but I did personalize them with the first letter of our name.







Hope you and any kids you are dealing with have fun doing this, but please for the love of all that is good and pure, remember not to let and of the dumb/clumsy ones do the cutting of the orange or the taking in/out of the oven without proper supervision.

That’s just bad form.