If you are new to piping cupcakes our tutorial is the perfect for beginners looking to achieve the classic, two-toned technique with their frostings, icings, and buttercreams.

Scroll to learn how!

Step 1 – Flavor your buttercream.

You can use any of your favorite LorAnn bakery emulsions or vanilla extracts/bean paste to flavor buttercream frosting. Use your personal recipe or here is our Perfect Pipeable Swiss Meringue Buttercream recipe. LorAnn’s bakery emulsions are the flavoring boost you’ll need when it comes to flavoring delicious baked goods, cakes, cupcakes, and even frostings or icings. Our bakery emulsions are more robust compared to typical extracts since they are suspended in water as opposed to alcohol. Professional bakers prefer baking with emulsions than alcohol-based extracts because they are able to flavor the culinary creation accordingly without worry of flavor loss when their baked good is exposed to heat. In addition to flavoring baked goods, flavoring frostings or buttercreams can add the bold and delicious flavor twist to take your cake or cupcakes to the next level. For flavoring 3 cups of frosting we recommend using 1-3 teaspoons of the bakery emulsion of choice.

Some of our favorite flavors in frosting include:

Butter Vanilla Bakery Emulsion
Princess Cake & Cookie Bakery Emulsion
Lemon Bakery Emulsion
Almond Bakery Emulsion

Step 2 – Divide frosting in ½ and prepare to color.

Grab two LorAnn Liquid Gel Food Colors of choice to create your masterpiece. Like most gel food colorings/paste, LorAnn’s Liquid Gel Food Colors are water-based and contain glycerin, where the semi-thick coloring creates a more concentrated form of food coloring. That means you are able to achieve the desired color in less drops than other food colorings on the market. With our gels, you can typically achieve desired color in 3-4 drops so we recommend starting small and add until your desired color is achieved. For more tips on blending liquid gel food coloring check out our easy guide here!

Step 3 – Fill your piping bag.

Prepare a large piping bag (empty) with tip of choice. We recommend using larger tips, especially open star if you are trying to achieve a rosette design. Place half of one of the colored frostings on one side of the bag, and then place the remaining color on the other empty side. Be careful to not overfill the bag. Twist and secure the tops of all of the bags.

Recipe Tip: Test pipe on parchment paper to make sure both colors are coming through the piping bag to create the two-toned effect.

Some of our favorite types of decorating tips:
• Open Star
• Closed Star
• Open Round
• Drop Flower
• Petal and Leaf Tips

Step 4 – Pipe your design!

Hold your bag at a 45 degree angle with the tip about half an inch from the surface of your cupcake. Starting at the center of the cupcake, using your dominate had, apply light pressure to the bag to form a star or dot. Without releasing pressure, raise the tip slightly and begin to move writs in a circular motion until the cupcake is covered completely. For additional height complete spiral motion again around the inside edge of your first rotation to build on the cupcake until you have reached your desired height. There you have your beautiful two-toned frosted cupcakes!