Our Pot o’ Gold Cupcakes Recipe are a festive and sweet addition to your St. Patrick’s Day celebrations! Today’s St. Patties Day dessert begin with a cake mix which is always nice when you’re running short on time! Of course, we had to color them green. We take a yellow cake mix–add pistachio pudding, eggs, sour cream, milk, canola oil, almond extract, and green food coloring. Don’t forget to garnish with a gold chocolate coin to get all the luck of the Irish in our Pot o’ Gold Cupcakes Recipe. 🙂
Ingredients in our Pot o’ Gold Cupcakes Recipe
- yellow cake mix
- pistachio pudding
- eggs
- light sour cream
- milk, water, canola oil, almond extract
- green food coloring
- Rolo’s candy bar rolls
- chocolate gold coins, to garnish
- Almond Buttercream Frosting:
- butter
- powdered sugar
- almond extract
- milk
Step by Step Pot o’ Gold Cupcakes Recipe
My cupcakes turned out to be a bit of an experiment–I originally thought I’d bake them for 3 minutes, add in the Rolo’s and finish cooking! Sadly, no… my plan didn’t quiet work out.
Our Pot o’ Gold Cupcakes Recipe puff up so big and fluffy while they bake then settle down to normal size as they cool.
So, I changed to adding the Rolo after they cooled for a festive “Pot o’ Gold” surprise in the middle!
- Ingredients for Pot o’ Gold Cupcakes
- In a large bowl combine cake mix and pudding
- Mix well
- In a small bowl whisk eggs
- Add milk, whisk
- Add sour cream, whisk
- Add in almond extract, oil, and water
- Add green food coloring, whisk
- Make a well in the dry ingredients, pour liquid in
- Mix for 2 minutes until well combined with hand mixer
- Spray liner with cooking spray so they’ll easily release once cooked
- Using a 1/4 C measure cup or a medium ice cream scoop, fill liners 2/3 the way full
- Bake 350 degrees for 18-22 or until a toothpick comes out clean, remove from pan immediately, cool on a rack
- Cut an “x” in the top of each cupcake
- Press 1 Rolo into the cut for the Pot o’ Gold suprise
- The frosting will cover whats left of the hole
- Frost with a frosting bag and a Wilson #2A circle tip
- Cutest little Pot o’ Gold Cupcakes
- In a medium bowl, beat butter until smooth, add powdered sugar 1 C at a time
- with all the powdered sugar added it will seem to thick, then add almond, and 1 Tbsp milk
- You want a stiff peak consistency so it will pipe well and hold its shape, if still too thick add 1 Tsp additional milk
- Pot o’ Gold Cupcakes cut so you can see the suprise center
- Here are my 2 failed attempts at adding the Rolo’s during cooking… 🙂
Helpful baking tips for higher elevations:
- If you live 3,000 feet above sea level or more it is considered high elevation and may take longer to cook/bake.
- Adjustments are needed for 5000+ feet and above:
- Reduce baking powder: for each teaspoon, decrease 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon.
- Reduce sugar: for each cup, decrease 2 tablespoons.
- Increase liquid: for each cup, add 2 to 4 tablespoons.
- Increase oven temperature by 25 degrees F.
- Check if it is done a little early.
- This takes some trial and error to get it right for you.
Learn more HERE
Pot o' Gold Cupcakes Recipe

Today's Pot o' Gold Cupcakes Recipe are a festive and a sweet addition to your St. Patrick's Day celebrations!
Ingredients
- Pot o' Gold Cupcakes:
- 1 yellow cake mix
- 2 (2 oz) pistachio pudding (2 small boxes)
- 3 eggs, room temperature
- 3/4 cup light sour cream, room temperature
- 3/4 cup milk
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/4 cup canola oil
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 7 drops green food coloring
- 3 packages Rolo's candy bar rolls
- 18 chocolate gold coins, to garnish
- Almond Buttercream Frosting:
- 1 cup salted butter, softened
- 4-5 cups powdered sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon almond extract
- 1-2 tablespoons milk
Instructions
- Cupcakes:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Place cupcake liners in cupcake pan.
- Spray the liners with cooking spray (helps to ensure easy removal).
- In large mixing bowl combine cake mix and pudding; mix well.
- In a small mixing bowl whisk eggs, sour cream, milk, canola oil, almond extract, and green food coloring.
- Make a well in the dry ingredients, pour the liquid into the well, mix with a hand mixer for 2-3 minutes at medium speed.
- Using a 1/4 cup measuring cup or a D-20 medium ice cream scoop, fill cupcake liners.
- Bake for 18-22 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. (they will puff up a lot and shrink back while cooling.)
- Remove immediately from pan and cool on a cooling rack.
- Once cooled cut an "x" shape in the middle of each top (see tutorial), place 1 Rolo in each cupcake and frost.
- Decorate with a gold coin if desired.
- Almond Buttercream Frosting:
- In a medium sized mixing bowl--beat butter for 2 minutes until smooth.
- Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time.
- Mix well, mixture will appear too stiff, add almond extract and 1 tablespoon milk, mix until stiff peak consistency, if needed add additional tablespoon of milk.
- To frost (I used a frosting bag and a Wilson #2 A circle tip).
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
18Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 849Total Fat: 22gSaturated Fat: 11gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 9gCholesterol: 67mgSodium: 366mgCarbohydrates: 162gFiber: 1gSugar: 145gProtein: 5g
More Irish Recipes
- Irish Corned Beef with Cabbage
- Irish Soda Farls
- Irish Mushroom Melt
- Irish Bangers and Mash with Brown Gravy
- Irish Coffee with Baileys and Kahlua
- Irish Cream Bundt Cake
- Irish Spicy Reuben Sandwich
- Irish Creme de Menthe Cocktail
- Irish Ginger Snaps
Share some leprechaun love with our Pot o’ Gold Cupcakes Recipe!
One more thing before you go…
We love creating recipes and sharing our adventures with you, so if you can do us a huge favor it’d really support us! It’s easier to stay motivated to share our best with you when we hear from you! We adore our readers and it really makes our day to get comments, social tags/shares, or pins that you save for later to share with your family and friends.
Our hearts sing when you do.
We SEE you and we do our very best to respond to all the love! It also amps up our mo-jo so we get lots of awesome things done around here. Please reach out if you have questions or comments via our email: ruthie@cookingwithruthie.com. We’re excited to see you again soon!
Cooking with Ruthie on Instagram
Cooking with Ruthie on Pinterest
Cooking with Ruthie on Facebook
Thanks for sharing in the CWR blog-love!
Love Always,
Ruthie & Madeliene