Christmas Cupcakes

As I started putting together a little box of goodies for my husband's work, I decided for some reason that I just had to send cupcakes. Who knows why? You know there is certainly no rhyme or reason to my thought process. Perhaps, I thought I didn't have enough to do or maybe I am just continually finding things to do to put off wrapping the mound of Christmas presents staring at me from down the hall. I really am going to wrap them, but the sooner I wrap them, the sooner my 18 month old will either unwrap them, use them as a step stool or stick them in the toilet. I'm really not just procrastinating....really.
Moving on, since I had to make cupcakes, I wanted them to seem really Christmassy (I know its not a word). Looking back at my recent posts, I drew inspiration from my tie-dyed cake and decided I would do swirled Christmas cupcakes. And it worked! Here's how I did it:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tins with cupcake liners. Mix together a white cake mix following the directions on the box. Then, equally divide the mixture into 3 bowls.

You will want to use gel food coloring. It looks like this: You can purchase it here. Leave one bowl white, color one red and color one green. They will darken as they cook. It will look like this:

Now, you will put one heaping tablespoon of each color cake batter into each cupcake liner. Your liners will be about half full. Your unbaked cupcakes will look like this:
Then, take a toothpick and swirl through the batter of each cup several times. Just swirl it, don't mix it together completely. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center. Let cool completely. Frost with your favorite frosting. This is my favorite:

White Icing
Ingredients
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1 cup shortening
2 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoon clear imitation vanilla extract
1 tablespoon almond extract
white corn syrup

Directions
In a large bowl, combine sugar, shortening, water and extracts. Beat on low speed to combine, then beat on medium speed for a full five minutes.Drizzle in corn syrup until the icing starts to look glossy and fluffy. You may also need to add a little more milk to get it to fluff up. It won't look like Icing at first, but keep the mixer going for a full fifteen minutes. Yes, 15 minutes! Ice cake or cupcakes and Enjoy!

Fill decorating bag with icing and frost cupcakes as desired. The finished product will look like this:

Enjoy!