Colorful swirled cupcakes

With as many ways as there are to decorate cupcakes, they can be really boring if you just slap some plain icing on them. I like to make them fun and interesting, and one of my favorite ways to do that is with colorful, swirled icing.

Rather than mix food coloring into the icing, I use it to paint the decorator bag, creating a result so crazy and cool that you won’t believe you got it from such a simple technique. Let me show you how!

Gather the supplies

colorful swirled cupcakesThe first things you’ll need, of course, are cupcakes and icing! This technique works best with white decorator’s icing (see here for my recipe), but you can use canned frosting if you need to, just make sure it’s as white as possible. As for equipment, you’ll need some disposable icing bags, a star-shaped icing tip (I like size 18), and optionally a coupler. You’ll also need a small, clean paint brush and some paste food coloring in various colors. (It must be paste. Liquid won’t work.) Finally, grab a tall drinking glass, which will help to hold the bag for you.

Select the colors

The best part about this technique is that you can choose any colors you want and can customize it to the occasion. You can use orange and black for Halloween, red and green for Christmas, or pink and blue for a baby shower. A rainbow of colors makes for a fun child’s party treat (like Jo’s Candyland party) and can even look tie-dyed. Using team colors will make a great addition to any sporting event, from a child’s soccer game to a tailgating party.

You’ll be painting from 4 to 6 stripes of color for your icing, but you can repeat colors, so you really only need at least 2 different colors (up to 6 max).

Paint the bags

colorful swirled cupcakesOkay, now for the actual technique! Attach the star tip and coupler to the disposable bag and flip the end of the bag out to form a cuff, so that you can reach the inside easier. Here’s where the glass comes in handy, as it serves as a holder for the bag. Put the tip of the bag in the bottom of the glass and let it stand upright.

Now use the paint brush to paint stripes of color on the inside of the bag, starting at the tip and going up about 3-4 inches. Each stripe of food coloring should be fairly thick and about 1/2″ wide.

If you are using 2 or 3 colors, paint two stripes of each color, alternating them. If you are using 4, 5, or 6 colors, paint one stripe of each color. Be sure to leave some space between each stripe.

The photo on the left shows me painting orange and black alternating stripes, and the result is in the center photo. On the right, you can see a rainbow of 6 colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple).

colorful swirled cupcakescolorful swirled cupcakescolorful swirled cupcakes

Fill the bags

Now scoop a bunch of white icing into the bag with a spoon. The stripes of color will be very easy to see now. Twist the top of the bag to close it and squeeze icing out of the tip until it no longer flows white, but starts to show the colors you used. Pretty cool, huh?

colorful swirled cupcakescolorful swirled cupcakescolorful swirled cupcakes

Decorate the cupcakes

Now for the fun part! Squeeze the icing out onto the cupcake in any design or pattern you want. Here are some example patterns I like:

colorful swirled cupcakescolorful swirled cupcakescolorful swirled cupcakes
colorful swirled cupcakescolorful swirled cupcakescolorful swirled cupcakes

The results

Here are my finished cupcakes. You can see that the color starts out bolder and fades as you do more cupcakes. Eventually you’ll run out of icing in the bag, but unfortunately you can’t just keep adding more, because your color will get all used up. You’ll need to start with a clean bag each time you need more icing (which is why I like the disposable ones) and paint fresh stripes on it. You should be able to get about a dozen cupcakes out of one bag of icing.

colorful swirled cupcakescolorful swirled cupcakes

Topics: All, Christmas, Cooking, Holidays, Kids, Parties

8 comments so far:

  1. Pauline said: (September 18th, 2008 at 9:39 pm)

    Do you think it would work if I just used a Ziploc bag and snipped off the end?

  2. Chica said: (September 19th, 2008 at 7:42 am)

    Hmm, that’s an interesting suggestion, Pauline. In theory a Ziploc would work, but in practice I think it would give you a lot of trouble. The Ziploc isn’t going to be as stiff as the decorator bag, so I think you might have a hard time keeping the sides from touching each other as you paint the stripes. Also, because it’s square, it’s much wider and you might have a hard time getting your stripes of color on there.

    So I guess a Ziploc might work in a pinch, but I think you would be frustrated and would get much better results with an icing bag.

    Whichever type of bag you use, I really recommend using a star tip in the bag (rather than just cutting a hole in the end) so that you get nice decorative edges on the icing, rather than just round blobs. :)

  3. dot said: (September 19th, 2008 at 10:24 am)

    Those are great! i love the simplicity of the idea. I’m going to link to this for my halloween series if you don’t mind :)
    dot

  4. Chica said: (September 19th, 2008 at 11:22 am)

    Dot, we would love for you to link to us. Your site, Dabbled, looks really fun and I can’t wait to read more!

  5. Rachel said: (September 22nd, 2008 at 4:32 pm)

    This looks like so much fun! I might have to try this in orange and black.

  6. Ann at mommysecrets said: (September 25th, 2008 at 9:11 am)

    Those are super cute and creative!

  7. Chica said: (September 25th, 2008 at 3:03 pm)

    Thanks, Rachel and Ann!

  8. frodo said: (October 1st, 2008 at 6:47 pm)

    yes it would work if you use a ziplock and cut the end off. i saw alton brown do it last nite
    on feasting on waves…just go slow, or it will pop off frodo

Have something to say? Please comment!

Please visit Chica and Jo at http://www.chicaandjo.com for even more clever ideas!