Celebration Marble Cupcakes

posted by Nancy on March 23, 2021 (updated 6/8/22) // 30 Comments

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.

Four Celebration Marble Cupcakes sitting on a white Easter Cake Stand with a Bunny.

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

Closeup on a large white mixing bowl filled with white cake batter and a hand-mixer.

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.

Four measuring cups filled with cupcake batter tinted purple, blue, pink and yellow.

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

Animated GIF showing how to spoon the colored cupcake batter into the cupcake liner to achieve an marble effect in the 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.

Closeup on a cupcake pan filled with the multi-colored cupcake batter that will create the marble effect in the cupcakes.

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.

The insides of three cupcakes showing the varying marble patterns of each cupcake.

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

Glass bowl filled with homemade Best Buttercream Frosting sitting next to a decorating bag filled with 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

Collage image showing how to frost the Celebration Marble Cupcakes using a decorating bag and a 2D frosting tip.

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.

Closeup on the yellow, pink, purple and blue frosting swirls of Buttercream Frosting on the Celebration Marble Cupcakes.

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

How far ahead of a party can you make these cupcakes?

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.

Do these cupcakes need to be refrigerated?

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.

Closeup on a party display of Celebration Marble Cupcakes - including one cupcake cut in half to show the pastel marble pattern on the inside of the cupcake.

Other Easter Desserts You Will Love

Easter Cupcakes

Springtime Celebration Popcorn

Brownie Rice Krispie Treats

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

Did you Make This Recipe? Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @twosisterscrafting on Instagram so we can see it!
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