Valentines Cupcakes

Description of Valentines Cupcakes

These Valentines cupcakes were a fun surprise for my twins. These Tri-color cupcakes were so pretty! Easy to make and you can tailor it to any holiday or occasion by changing the colors. We used white box cake mix. On the box it says it makes 24 cupcakes but we ended up with 20 filling each 2/3 full as instructed.
Download the recipe here: Valentines Cupcake or use our print button.
Pretty Valentines cupcake with a tri color surprise inside.

Ingredients

  • 1 box Cake Mix or prepare your favorite recipe
  • Red Food Dye
  • Frosting or your choice. Here is our favorite Buttercream Recipe that we use.

Materials

  • Large Bowl
  • 2 Quart Sized Ziplocks, Freezer if possible.
  • Cupcake Pan(s) and Valentines Cupcake printed or solid color liners
  • Scissors
  • For the frosting if you are not using a spatula, a Ziplock or Wiltons Icing Bag and Decorating Tip
  • Sprinkles if desired
  • Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). I did this after coloring the last batter since this takes longer to prepare than normal cupcakes.
  • Line Cupcake pan with liners. We chose white and red for Valentines Day.
  • Prepare your cake mix as directed on box or your recipe.
  • Fill cupcake liners 1/3 full with white batter, set aside.
  • Stir 3-4 drops of red food coloring into the remaining bowl of batter to make the batter pink. Mix well.
  • Pour about a 1/3 of this pink batter into a ziplock bag. Set aside trying to keep batter in one corner is helpful.
  • Mix more food coloring into the remaining bowl of pink batter to make the shade of pink or red you desire. Add just a couple drops at a time and mix well.
  • Pour this dark pink/red batter into another ziplock also trying to keep most of it in one corner.
Pour colored batter into a decorating bag with tip.
  • Snip a very, very tiny corner of the darker color and squeeze about two tablespoons into the center of each cupcake liner containing the white batter.
  • Snip a tiny corner of the lighter color and squeeze about one tablespoon into the center of the darker color in each cupcake liner.
  • Bake in the preheated oven as directed according to your oven settings. Check with a toothpick or skewer inserting into the center of a cupcake. It is done when the toothpick or skewer comes out clean.
  • Cool completely before frosting and adding sprinkles.
  • Decorate with a spatula or use Wilton bags and tips. You can put two colors of frosting in a bag to achieve the pink and white frosted look as well. We tried to put one color on each side of the bag. Squeeze to test first as it may need to squeeze a bit out before it combines.

Tips and Suggestions

  • Keep the batter in one corner of your ziplock. Place in large cup or narrow dish while you are prepapring the second ziplock.
  • Cut a very very tiny corner of the ziplock of the colored batter or it will pour too fast and make a mess!
  • I gave the ziplock bag a quick "squirt" while putting the just the tip of the ziplock into the batter in the liner. Watch the level of the batter in the liner. When finished, you want the liner to be only about 2/3 full. It looked like it was going to layer the colors but it sunk nicely into the cupcake as it baked.
  • I thought pouring the darker color first had a stronger contrast in colors but you could reverse the light and dark.
  • This was a really cute Valentines cupcake, but you can use this technique for any holiday or occasion by simply changing the colors such as green for St. Patrick's Day.