Frosting Magic: DIY Swirled Cupcakes

I am SO excited to share this fun tip with you!

 After a whole lot of trial and error, lots of reading and quite a few big messes, I've finally figured out how to make swirled frosting in the least complicated way possible.

What's even better? 

The cleanup is a breeze!

I start with a butter cream frosting which is basically two sticks of butter, four cups of powdered sugar, a splash of good vanilla extract, a pinch of Kosher salt and a few tablespoons of heavy cream or whole milk. *For a rich cream cheese frosting, swap replace one stick of butter with an 8 oz. bar of room temperature cream cheese.

 Mix it all together just like my sweet little sous-chef does below:

 Separate your frosting evenly into two bowls and add color to one or both. I usually swear by Wilton's colored gel like this (and, by the way, this is a fantastic deal for these little pots...they go a really long way and are usually just shy of $3 at Michaels):

Anyway, in this case, I only had a super dark forest green, so I used regular food coloring.

When the frosting was the right color green, I spread it out in a log form onto a piece of Saran Wrap then added the white frosting alongside it. 

I sealed the edges then twisted the top and bottom of the Saran Wrap. 

First I fitted my pastry bag with a Wilton 1 tip.

I snipped the tip off of one end of the Saran Wrap then carefully dropped it into my pastry bag with some help from my sweet sous. 

I tied the top of the Saran Wrap so the frosting wouldn't squirt out the top.

Then I used my normal swirling motion to frost each mini-cupcake. 

When you're done, the Saran Wrap slides right out of the pastry bag- all you need to do is a quick rinse!

I get a lot of questions about exactly which tools I prefer for baking...

I love Wilton's cake decorating tools- they are super easy to use and clean, and they are not at all pricey!

Here's a basic set of tips and disposable bags.

 Once you get really proficient at decorating, I'd definitely recommend upgrading your bags to the plastic kind like this one:

I just need to take a second and brag about this little lady.

She frosted probably half of the cupcakes with very little help from me! Basically I just steadied her hand and squeezed, she did the rest...

Her game plan is to become a pastry chef "so I can eat every single treat". 

Gotta love a girl who knows what she wants!

I pay her in sugar.

Everyone has a price.

Yes, I know, we are heathens in this house!

And we love it.

Happy Weekend and Happy Spring!