Swirl Cupcakes

I am officially a mom.  Well…technically it’s been for almost 4 years now…but I have been hazed, and tested, and now inducted into official mom-hood.  That’s right…I was in charge of making cupcakes for Hunter’s school Easter party.  Total “mom” type duties, right???
No one actually said I was in charge of MAKING cupcakes.  But you all know that buying directly off the shelf just ain’t my style.  It’s not how I roll.  I mean…a little HELP from boxed cake mix and frosting is fine…just…not DIRECT.  HAHA.  So I decided to try something a little different with the frosting and do a fun little swirly thing.  Being that this is my first time doing this, I probably would have done a few things differently, but I think they look pretty darn cute!
First, gather your tools.  I used a food coloring gel (I tend to like them better. They have better colors), a disposable piping bag (won’t burst like a Ziploc might) a star decorating tip, a cup, and of course, frosting.  I start by placing the tip on the bag and placing the whole bag in a cup like so:

Next, you line the piping bag with some food gel.  Here’s a tip on what I should've done: I just used a chopstick to dip into the gel and then smeared it onto the piping bag. What I failed to remember is that a little gel goes a LOOOOOOOONNNGGGGG way.  If I had time, energy, and more cupcakes to do it over, I probably would have just used a paint brush to paint a thin layer on the inside of the bag.  It still turned out cute. You’ll see what happened in a bit.

Then just dump your frosting into the bag like so.  Oh…I always use a glass to hold the pastry bag up. It makes it so much easier to fill.  I don’t know if this is a tip that everyone knows…but thought I’d point it out!

After your bag is filled, take it out of the cup, and start to squeeze the frosting into a bowl until the color starts coming out. Tip that I failed to use: Let the frosting come to room temperature if it’s been in the fridge.  Otherwise, man it’s hard to squeeze out!

Then just frost!  You get cool little stripes in your frosting!  See how it looks SO orange, when I really wanted just yellow?  That’s because I used way too much food gel.  If I had just painted it on the bag, I probably would have gotten a nice yellow color instead of the deep color that came out.  Plus, because I used to much….this happened…

Uh oh….I thought I was going to be kicked out of the mom club once all those kids went home with yellow stained faces!  LOL! Trust me. I was looking at every kid's face, clothes, and hands as they came out of class that day, but success!!  Nothing was stained!  Just me!  I really want to do this little trick again, as I think it would look really sweet with just a few little tweaks!  If you guys try it, send us a pic and let us know how it turns out!