A friend of mine recently had a baby girl and a group of friends got together to bring the new mom meals and treats in these first few weeks. Of course I volunteered to bring cupcakes!

I used Magnolia Bakery’s vanilla cupcake recipe and the following vanilla frosting recipe…

Vanilla Buttercream
makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, chilled
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon milk

Method
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine 1 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar, unsalted butter, salt, and vanilla, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as necessary. Add milk and continue mixing until well combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula, as necessary. With the mixer running, slowly add remaining 1/2 cup confectioners sugar, mix until well combined.

I tinted half the frosting pink. To get the pink and white swirl, simply place pink frosting on one side inside of a pastry bag and white frosting on the other side so that the pink and white frostings are side by side. You’ll need to squeeze a bit of the frosting out at first to get to the swirled part. It’s a really nice effect!

The swirled stars on the white frosted cupcakes were made simply by squeezing out a small amount of frosting and twisting the pastry bag at the same time.