Swirl icing cupcakes

I almost named this post UGLIEST CUPCAKES I HAVE EVER MADE.  And that is saying something for me, because I have made some real doozies in the past.  I amended it to swirl icing cupcakes because they actually look better in a photograph than they do in person (haven't decided if that's a good thing or a bad thing). 

In my mind, this was going to be such a cute cupcake.  I made a white cake batter that I colored half orange and half purple, and then a chocolate batter.  Then I layered them in the liners with purple on the bottom, orange in the middle, and chocolate on the top.  I love the look of surprise when someone bites into the cupcake and sees all the colors of cake.  Unfortunately, the batters were of different consistenies and all glommed together to make a shade reminisent of vomit.  Not kidding.

After taking these lovelies out of the oven and cooling, I prepared the frosting.

In case you have never tried this technique, it is fairly easy.  I placed an icing bag in a glass and using gel food coloring, painted two stripes of orange and two stripes of purple on the inside of the bag. 

After carefully loading the bag with white buttercream, I just swirled the icing on top of the vomit colored cupcakes.  Problem was that the purple was far too strong (almost looked black on some of the cupcakes) and overpowered the orange.  I needed to go far more sparingly with the purple and bump up the orange OR using colors that are more similar in depth. 

Oh well, live and learn.  I also added purple and orange sanding sugar in an attempt to camouflage. 

At any rate, they are done and packed up ready to be delivered to Isabelle's field hockey game tonight.  And I have to say, kids are not tough critics when it comes to baked goods.  Thank heaven. 

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