These Easy Sweet 16 Cupcakes look fabulous and taste just as good! You won’t believe how easy these cupcakes are to make and decorate with their beautiful tri-tone pink frosting. We are sharing all the keys to success so that your birthday party will be fantastic and stress-free with these easy pink cupcakes.
I made these sweet pink cupcakes for Emily’s 16th birthday party and they were a huge hit!
Everybody loved the vanilla buttercream frosting on the top and thought they were so colorful and pretty.
They were easy to make and didn’t take long to decorate at all.
Disclosure – I may get a small commission for purchases made through affiliate links in this post.
Key to Success #1 – Use Parchment Paper Cupcake Liners
This is one baking secret that I wish more people knew.
When you are baking cupcakes or muffins, line your muffin tin with parchment paper cupcake liners.
You do not need to spray the wrappers with non-stick cooking spray that can cause the cupcakes to get all greasy because the liners are naturally non-stick.
Your cupcakes and wrappers won’t be all greasy but the cupcakes will come out of the wrappers very easily.
I like to use the PaperChef cupcake liners but any good parchment paper liner will do the trick.
You can just drop a liner into each well in your muffin pan then add the cupcake batter directly into the liner with no greasing required.
You will be shocked and amazed how easily the cupcakes come out of the liners whey they are cooled.
Key to Success #2 – Place the Cupcakes In Decorative Wrapper Before Frosting
We are using very simple decorations for our cupcakes by adding decorative wrappers to cover the parchment paper cupcake liners.
When the cupcakes are frosted, we will add some Happy Birthday and Sweet 16 cupcake picks right through the center.
Instead of the picks, you could use some other type of toppers like a fake diamond ring cupcake topper or a princess crown.
Before you frost your cupcakes, put them into the decorative wrapper.
They will be much easier to handle before adding the frosting on the top.
A great tip for the decorative wrappers is to assemble the wrappers first the place the undecorated cupcake in the middle and gently tap it on the countertop until it sits level in the wraper.
Key to Success #3 – Use Colors That Will Blend Well (and gel food color)
For this cupcake decorating method, the frosting colors will definitely blend together some while you are piping the frosting on the cupcakes.
This is what we want to happen, but it’s important to make sure the colors you choose will blend well.
For example, you might think that red and green on a cupcake would look festive for Christmas, but when you blend red and green together you will end up with a yucky brown color.
I always go with two tones of the same base color then add in a white.
You could easily do just one frosting color plus white for a pretty pink cupcake.
You can make the pink as light or as dark as you want by adding more food coloring.
Be sure to use a good high-quality gel food color because you will need to use less to get a deep shade of color.
If you use liquid food coloring, you will have to use quite a lot to get a rich color and it could affect the consistency and texture of your frosting.
I like Americolor gel food coloring for tinting my baked goods.
I purchased a kit with 12 colors in it several years ago and I still have plenty of all the colors.
It only takes a few drops of gel food coloring to get a really pretty tint to the frosting.
Save this Easy Sweet 16 Cupcakes recipe to your favorite 16th Birthday Party board or your Pink Cupcakes board.
Easy Sweet 16 Cupcakes
Ingredients
FOR THE CAKE
- 1 box 15 oz French Vanilla cake mix
- 1 cup water
- 4 eggs
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
FOR THE FROSTING
- 1 recipe Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
- light pink gel food coloring like Americolor #214
- dark pink/fuchsia gel food coloring like Americolor #427
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two 12-well muffin pans with parchment paper cupcake liners.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine French Vanilla cake mix, water, eggs, and vegetable oil. Mix on medium speed 2 minutes until combined.
- Divide the batter evenly between muffin pans.
- Bake cupcakes for 16-20 minutes until cupcakes are lightly browned and tops spring back when lightly pressed. Cool the cupcakes completely.
- Use a stand mixer to whip up Vanilla Buttercream Frosting.
- Evenly divide frosting into three bowls. Tint one bowl of frosting with pink gel food coloring. Tint another bowl of frosting with dark pink/fuchsia gel food coloring. Leave the other bowl of frosting white.
- Fit a pastry/piping bag with a large closed star piping tip.
- Use a spoon or spatula to add a scoop of each color into the piping bag. Continue adding spoonfuls of frosting to the piping bag until all frosting has been added.
- Gently squeeze the bag to push the frosting down to the tip.
- Place the cupcakes into the decorative wrapper before frosting, if using.
- To decorate the cupcakes, position the piping tip vertically over the center of the cupcake. Squeeze the piping bag gently to place a dollop of frosting in the center of the cupcake. Continue squeezing the piping bag as you move the tip to the outer edge of the cupcake then move in a circle all the way around the outer edge. When you reach a full circle, stop squeezing the bag then gently pull the piping tip up and away from the cupcake.
Notes
- You can use a single color plus the white frosting. Or you can just do one solid color. The colors will combine when placed into the piping bag so keep this in mind when choosing your colors.