Marbled chocolate frosted cupcakes

Cupcakes were the subject of my latest baking attempt, which I was happy to make because it had been a while. Once again I had a reason to whip up a batch; my friend's birthday celebrations last week as mentioned here. In the days prior, I had a few ideas running through my head of what variety I would like to make. I decided on a marbled chocolate frosted cupcake, but I also now have another idea that I would like to try out at a later date. As I was looking online for a suitable recipe, I came across further inspiration and was reminded of how, as a child, I used to make marble cake with my grandma. We would separate the cake batter into thirds, leaving one third as is, using pink food colouring to change the colour of another third and adding cocoa powder to the remaining mixture. Wanting to recreate this in a cupcake, I decided on the recipe found here. I must admit I was a bit hesitant about mixing the ingredients all at once as the recipe called for, but it wasn't too bad. When the batter was ready I poured the vanilla portion into the cupcake liners then spilt the remaining mixture. I added a few drops of pink food colouring to one portion and the cocoa powder to the other. I put the pink cake batter into the liners before the chocolate, but in hindsight I think it would have made a better marbled effect if I had done it in reverse. As you can see below, I still need to work on my technique to get the effect right, but that is okay because I enjoy practicing.

For the chocolate frosting I went with my own measurement of ingredients, which is what I seem to prefer at the moment:

• 1 & 1/4 cups butter, softened
• 2/3 cup cocoa powder
• 2 cups icing sugar
• 2-3 drops of vanilla essence

I chopped up the butter and put it into a bowl with the icing sugar. I must have been a little bit distracted, as usually I would whip the butter by itself first. I whipped the butter and icing sugar together until it was combined. Next I added the few drops of vanilla essence and the cocoa powder, which I did not sift this time around. I mixed the ingredients together on low speed at first to avoid the powder going everywhere. Once it was all combined, I turned the electric beaters up to medium speed and whipped the frosting for about a minute. As per usual, I used my Wilton 1M decorating tip to apply the frosting to the cupcakes and give them a nice polished finish. The final step was a sprinkling of pearlized jewel jimmies. The photos below don't quite showoff the marbled effect, but that just means I really should work on my photography as well!