I have a few kitchen-tested, reader-approved, very trusty cupcake recipes on my website. Two favorites? These vanilla funfetti cupcakes and these chocolate cupcakes. I knew I wanted to make one of them, but was having trouble deciding which. So I decided to jazz things up. Throw a curveball and surprise everyone with an irresistible medley of both chocolate AND vanilla. Ladies and gents, I bring you… Ultimate Marble Cupcakes. Lucky for both you and me, these cupcakes are a snap to make.
How to Make Marble Cupcakes
First, you do NOT have to make a vanilla cupcake batter and a chocolate cupcake batter. Thank goodness! Similar to how you make marble loaf cake, you’ll simply make my trusted vanilla cupcake recipe and add cocoa powder to part of its batter. Less dishes, less time, less headache! The vanilla batter is all mixed together by hand in under 5 minutes. Once mixed, measure 3/4 cup of the batter and add to a medium mixing bowl with cocoa powder and a touch of milk. Since you’re adding more dry ingredients to this portion of the cupcake batter (the cocoa powder), you’ll need a touch of milk to thin it out. The marbling part is not tricky at all. You’ll simply spoon some vanilla batter into your cupcake liners, then some chocolate batter, then some more vanilla batter on top. Take a toothpick and gently swirl it all together a couple times. I only swirled a few of my cupcakes because I wanted to see how each (swirling vs no swirling) turned out. The swirling looked the prettiest when baked up! Here are some visuals: Now, let’s talk frosting. No cupcake is complete without it. If you’re anything like me, you like a little cupcake with a lot of frosting. You’re going to make two frostings. My favorite vanilla frosting and my favorite chocolate frosting. There are a few options for frosting these cupcakes:
Make both frostings and spread them each on your cupcakes however you’d like. Make either the vanilla frosting or the chocolate frosting (double the frosting recipes below to make sure there is enough for all 12 cupcakes) and frost the cupcakes with a knife or piping tip. Make swirled frosting using my How to Make Swirled Frosting page as a guide.
You’ll need a Wilton 1M piping tip and a piping bag if you choose the third option. All you do is spoon some vanilla frosting into one side of your piping bag and chocolate frosting into the other side. Then, pipe onto cupcakes in a swirl pattern: Again, my how to make swirled frosting post has tons of visuals to help guide you. I also include how I use the Wilton 1M swirl piping tip. If you’re ever curious about how I frost my cupcakes, that’s a handy page to read! So there you have it. A simple one-batter marble cupcake with velvety rich chocolate and vanilla frostings on top. Buttery vanilla paired with swirls of chocolate throughout every super-moist bite. Does it really get any better than this? Oh yes, it does. Top with a sparkly pink candle and celebrate your ultimate awesomeness. I can hardly wait for the birthday girls to taste their marbled treats! *Don’t be overwhelmed by the ingredient list! A lot of the ingredients are just repeated for each part of the cupcake/frostings. Still can’t decide? Here are a few more chocolate and vanilla cupcake recipes you’ll love:
Vanilla Cupcakes Moist Yellow Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Frosting Classic Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting White Wedding Cupcakes Chocolate White Chocolate Cupcakes Death by Chocolate Cupcakes Very Vanilla Cupcakes Carrot Cake Cupcakes
