Celebration Marble Cupcakes
These Celebration Marble Cupcakes are the perfect, easy-to-make treat for any celebration. They are guaranteed to wow the crowd at your next Easter brunch, Spring potluck, Unicorn birthday party, or even just a random Wednesday night with the family.
We love to make cupcakes for a party and these Celebration Marble Cupcakes might be the prettiest (and yummiest) cupcakes we have ever made. We start with a box cake mix, doctor it up so it tastes just like homemade, and then add some food coloring to up the wow quotient! We always top our cupcakes with our super delicious homemade The Best Buttercream Frosting! You can make these homemade marble cupcakes in any color combination to match any party you are throwing but we think these pretty pastel spring colors are just right for an Easter brunch or dinner, a Spring potluck, or a Unicorn Birthday Party.
How to Make the Cupcake Batter
Step 1: We made our Celebration Marble Cupcakes for a birthday party so we needed quite a few cupcakes and ended up using two boxes of White Cake Mix but you should be able to get 16-18 cupcakes from one cake box mix. Use the directions for “Egg Whites” only. This will help you get the brightest prettiest colors. If you need some other tips for how we make a Box Cake Mix taste just like homemade, check out our How to Doctor a Boxed Cake Mix post.
Steps 2-3: We split the cake batter into four equal portions. We used a food scale to measure each portion but as you can see in these pictures it was approximately 2 cups of cake mix for each color. (If you only need 20-24 cupcakes, you can use a single box of Cake Mix and each portion will be 1 cup of batter. ) Using our Wilton Color Right Food Coloring we tinted the cake batter four different colors – Pink, Yellow, Purple and Blue.
Here are the amounts of food coloring that we used to achieve these pretty Spring/Easter colors:
Purple = 5 drops of Wilton Color Right Pink Food Coloring and 2 drops of Wilton Color Right Blue Food Coloring
Blue = 2 drops of Wilton Color Right Blue Food Coloring
Pink = 3 drops of Wilton Color Right Pink Food Coloring
Yellow = 2 drops of Wilton Color Right Yellow Food Coloring
How to Create the Marble Cupcakes
Step 4: To make the marble effect we used a small spoon to alternate small drops of colored cake batter into the cupcake liner.
Step 5: There is no wrong way to layer in the colored cake batter – have fun. Bake the cupcakes according to the directions on the back of the cake mix box.
Step 6: Allow the cupcakes to cool before frosting. The inside of the cupcakes is the real wow factor! No two Celebration Marble Cupcakes looked the same … which we love!
How to make the Buttercream Frosting
Step 7: For the frosting, you will need two batches of our Best Buttercream Frosting if you are going to make a fancy swirl as we did here. If you are going to frost the cupcakes with a knife, one batch will be enough. This frosting is super easy to make and so very creamy and delicious. You can find the recipe and detailed instructions here.
Frosting the Cupcakes
Step 8: We colored the Buttercream Frosting the same four colors: purple, pink, yellow, and blue. You can find our food coloring formulas from frosting in our Frosting Color Guide post.
Step 9: Then we used a decorating bag with a Wilton 2D Frosting Tip to make this frosting swirl but you could also just apply the frosting with a knife. You can watch a video on how to make this frosting swirl in our How to Frost a Cupcakes post.
Step 10: Finally, we topped our Celebration Marble Cupcakes with some homemade sprinkles that match the four colors of our cupcake! This is super easy to do and really makes your desserts look special! We have all the directions you’ll need to make your own sprinkles right here.
Expert Tips and FAQs
Ideally, you should make the cupcakes the day before the party. You can store the frosted cupcakes in the refrigerator but remember to take them out a couple of hours before you are going to serve them because a cold cupcake is not a good cupcake. If you are short on time, you could make the cupcakes further ahead and freeze them until the day before the party and then defrost them and frost them the day before the party.
No. They will be fine left out at room temperature. Day one and two, they will taste great. On day three, the frosting will start to be hard on the outside and the cupcakes will start to get a little bit stale but they will still taste fine. After day four … the cupcakes will be stale. You can get another day or two out of them by storing them in the refrigerator.
Other Easter Desserts You Will Love
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Celebration Marble Cupcakes
These Celebration Marble Cupcakes are the perfect, easy-to-make treat for any celebration. They are guaranteed to wow the crowd at your next Easter brunch, Spring potluck, birthday party, or even just a random Wednesday night with the family.
Ingredients
- 1 box White Cake Mix
- 1 or 2 batches The Best Buttercream Frosting (depending on how you frost the cupcakes)
- Wilton Color Right Food Coloring
- Cupcake Liners
- Decorating Bags
- Wilton 2D Decorating Tip
- Cupcake Sprinkles
Instructions
- Make a batch of white cake batter using a box cake mix.
- Split the cake batter into four equal portions.
- Tint the cake batter four different colors - Pink, Yellow, Purple, and Blue.
- To create the marble effect - use a small spoon to alternate small drops of colored cake batter into the cupcake liner.
- Bake the cupcakes as directed on the cake mix box.
- Allow the cupcakes to cool.
- Make two batches of our Best Buttercream Frosting and color it the same four colors: purple, pink, yellow, and blue.
- Frost the cupcakes and add sprinkles.
Notes
Food Coloring Formulas
Purple = 5 drops of Wilton Color Right Pink Food Coloring and 2 drops of Wilton Color Right Blue Food Coloring
Blue = 2 drops of Wilton Color Right Blue Food Coloring
Pink = 3 drops of Wilton Color Right Pink Food Coloring
Yellow = 2 drops of Wilton Color Right Yellow Food Coloring
Did you Make this Recipe? Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @twosisterscrafting on Instagram so we can see it!
Would you make the cupcakes and frosting the night before or the day of the party?
Hi Courtney – for parties we almost always make and frost the cupcakes the day before. We store them in the refrigerator overnight and then take them out the morning of the party so they get back to room temperature before the party starts. Hope that helps!
I tried clicking on the link for the buttercream recipe and it would work
Hi Misty, we were having trouble on our site, but it should be working now. Thanks!
Love it! Just wish it was printable!
How long do these sprinklers last once you make them and u don’t use all of them
Hi Brooke – they last for a very long time. 6 months or longer if you keep them in an air-tight container.
would this work for a cake too? Making cupcakes for the kids at my daughters bday party but was thinking of doing a cake for the adults
Hi DeAnna – what a fun idea. The only issue we can see is that you will have to work fast to get the layers completed without having the colors run together. We also suggest using a thick cake mix like Pillsbury if you not making the batter from scratch.
I am only using 1 box of cake mix. Assuming that the food coloring amounts listed were for 2 boxes, do I need to halve the amount of food coloring? Is there a way to use a half drop? Don’t bake all that much, but really want to try these!
Hi Carrie, yes only use half the amount of food coloring. Half a drop will be hard, but depending on what kind of food coloring you are using, you can dip a toothpick in the jar or just very lightly squeeze some out. In the end, there is no wrong color.
Thanks for the quick reply!
Just made these and they turned out AMAZING!! Can’t wait for my family to try them tomorrow 🙂 thanks for sharing this!
We’re so glad the cupcakes turned out great! Happy Easter!
You make the cake mix according to the directions and then seperate it out into equal portions and add food coloring?
Hi Lacie, yes that is correct.
Where can you buy the Wilton’s food coloring?
Hi Savannah – You can find it on Amazon.com. Or at Michaels, Wal-Mart or Jo-ann’s Fabric and Crafting.
The brand that she uses is $20 a box a Walmart I went with the Wilton gel instead and worked great! Couldn’t see paying $20 for coloring.
Just wondering, is there a printable version of this recipe? They look great! Thanks!
Love these cupcakes great fun
These look amazing I can’t wait to try them this Sunday for Easter! I’m just wondering how to accomplish that look when frosting?
I think I will try this with my homemade recipe! Hope it works..
Hi Mary – we hope you like it!
How long should you bake them?
Hi Lauren – we usually bake our cupcakes for 20 minutes. But you should follow the directions for the cake mix that you use to make the cupcakes.
I finally found your recipe to make homemade sprinkles, but you only give directions on what colors and how many drops of food coloring to use for the purple color. I am making the Celebration Marble Cupcakes and need the amounts of drops of food coloring for the other three colors. Help, please!!
Hi Suzanne – use the same color combinations that we outline in the post for the frosting and the cake batter but use tiny little drops instead of regular sized drops.
These look fabulous. Money is tight this year for Easter goodies, so for the family, these will be my contribution and gift. I hope they turn out ok. Fingers crossed.
Thanks Ingrid, I’m sure your family will love them. Happy Easter!