Make My Day Camp: Swirled Frosting

Monday, October 2, 2023

Swirled Frosting

To finish up last week's cake posts (mermaid scales, shag, and buttercream frosting) I have one last thing to show you - how to make swirled frosting with 3 colors. There are a couple different ways to get the pretty swirled look - I've only ever done it with 2 colors (I posted one way here) but this time I still had multiple colored frosting left over from making the other cakes so I decided to try 3 colors this time.

You'll need

3 12" decorator bags, for this project I like to use clear plastic bags so I can watch what's happening with the frosting in each one
1 16" or large decorator bag, same as above - using a clear bag helps
frosting, your choice of colors
large piping tip

Put three different colored frostings in 3 different small plastic decorator bags (one color per bag). Don't fill to full or it'll squeeze out of the top! Put the large piping tip into the large decorator bag and measure where to snip off the bag tip so the piping tip is exposed; remove the piping tip and snip off the necessary amount of plastic bag tip, reinsert the piping tip.

Snip the same amount of tip off the 3 small decorating bags already filled with frosting. Twist the tops of the frosting bags to keep the frosting from coming out the top, and put the 3 small bags into the large bag, fitting all 3 tips into the large piping tip, twist the top of the large bag. Gently squeeze to start the frosting flowing thru the large tip. As you squeeze the bag the 3 colors will blend together on the cupcake or whatever you're frosting - using a circle motion with the bag, spiral the frosting onto the cupcake. If one color is dominating try turning the bag; if one color runs low then either add more frosting to that bag or add another color that looks good with the others. For instance - I had dark turquoise, medium turquoise, light turquoise/green, purple, pink, and white. So when the purple ran out I added pink to that bag (don't clean out the purple, just let them blend), when dark turquoise ran out I added medium.

I'm sorry I didn't take pictures while frosting the chocolate cupcakes I made for the party (in addition to the white cake for the mermaid scales one), you can see the finished product in their carry cases but I should have shown the steps. Next time I play with frostings I'll try to remember to update this post!