Apparently making cupcakes only once in a month is not enough cupcakes. Obviously. Also, I saw this frosting technique done somewhere (I forget where) and was looking for any excuse to try it out.
I made these for some students at school, who had successfully completed a rather large and onerous project and deserved cupcakes. Blue and white are the college’s varsity colours, so it seemed appropriate to tint the frosting blue. I made a batch of my trusted friend Martha’s Swiss meringue buttercream frosting and used gel colour to make it blue, because I’d heard that SMBC takes much better to gel colour than liquid food colour. Gel colour, it turns out, also comes in a much wider range of hues, so I was able to choose one that wasn’t the bright electric liquid food colour blue. Win/win.
The cupcakes themselves were a chocolate butter cake, which I found a little bit dry and definitely not as chocolatey as these or these.
But most important is the frosting. As I mentioned, I used Martha Stewart’s Swiss meringue buttercream, which was super buttery and fluffy. I’m not going to post the step-by-step SMBC recipe, because I’ve done that here and here and here before, and this one came together pretty easily, as far as Swiss meringue buttercreams go.
Martha’s recipe called for a whole pound of butter, but I found that I didn’t actually need all of it. Feel free to use your favorite SMBC recipe if you have one (or any frosting recipe, actually).
Swirly Frosting
I can’t remember where I first saw this technique – regardless, I can’t take credit for it.
For this frosting technique, you will need:
frosting (SMBC or otherwise)
food colouring
at least 2 disposable piping bags
one regular piping bag (or a third disposable one)
a piping bag coupler
a star piping tip
cupcakes
Divide your frosting in half and colour the two halves as desired.
Put a few spoonfuls of each frosting into two separate disposable piping bag and secure the ends with twist ties or elastic bands. You want the bags to be only loosely filled, less than half-full. Snip the tips off the bags. Prepare your third piping bag (disposable or otherwise) with a coupler and star piping tip.
Gently place the two frosting-filled bags inside the third bag, so that the tips of the frosting bags are inside the star tip of the third bag.
Frost your cupcakes with swirls, rosettes, zigzags, stars, and any other design you can think of. When you run out of frosting, remove the frosting bags and refill them halfway, then put them back in the third bag, taking care to return them to the same position in the bag as previous (otherwise you’ll get smudgy colours).
this looks so much fun than a single coloured frosting! I like the blue- white combo. Btw it’s Friday night, and taking que from u last week..my pizza dough is ready for some ‘bonding session’!
Thanks Jehanne. I hope the pizza night was a success 🙂
That’s so clever!
OMG! I am so trying that the next time I make cupcakes! I’ve tried it before without the three bags and made an epic mess. Oh and extra score on the MS Swiss Meringue Buttercream–my most favourite and reliable frosting recipe.
I know, Martha’s SMBC came together so easily! But I almost found it *too* buttery… I tried a Cook’s Illustrated version a while ago that I liked even better, I think.
How very creative! I’m just happy to get the icing on top of the cupcakes. Maybe I should try to expand my horizons. 🙂
That is so cool! Great idea and I cant wait to give it a try. I guess I might have to upgrade my baking utensils from a cut baggie on the end to some proper wilson bags with tips… LOL
Haha, I still use a baggie sometimes 😉
This looks like a fun party.. in your kitchen as well. I would be so happy to have been there swirling away too. This is so pretty.. they must have been thrilled with them. I haven’t had much success with Swiss buttercream.. maybe my butter was too soft?? Yours are just perfect! xx
Soft butter would definitely do it – it should be just of a spreadable consistency. And when in doubt, stick it in the fridge for a while! Sweetapolita has a SMBC tutorial post that helped me a lot when I was figuring out how to make it 🙂
supercool! what I like of your super advanced baking posts is that you always make it seem so easy to achieve even the wildest effects in baking. great job! I truly loved this trick of the double icing pipe, will have to try it out with my ada who loves cupcakes but never eats the icing 🙂 btw, chocolate cupcakes yum!
Aw, thanks Barbara. This isn’t a complicated technique, I swear! And I bet Ada would love helping 🙂
your frosting looks perfect!! it definitely looks really complicated, until you broke down the steps with that one picture 😛 thanks for the tip!!
I love the cream twist! Beautiful cupcakes!