Decorating Black and White Cupcakes

Easy ways to decorate black and white cupcakes!
photo courtesy of kkatrinaa

Black and white cupcakes have so many decorating possibilities.

Just a couple of things to keep in mind as you plan your black and white cupcake designs...

If you frost your cupcakes with chocolate buttercream, keep in mind that if you want it to be a dark brown color you'll need to add a bit of brown food coloring.
And if you're tempted to tint white frosting with black food coloring, watch out because it stains everything it touches (the stains are very hard to remove) and it can have a slightly bitter taste.

Now, back to the decorating ideas. The first step is to decide what kind of cupcake and what kind of frosting you want to use. This will influence your decorating choices. Or switch it around and figure out what kind of decorations you want and then choose your cupcake and frosting accordingly.

There are a zillion different combinations of cupcake and frosting.
For example:

white cupcakes (no, yellow is not an option!) with dark chocolate buttercream frosting

chocolate cupcakes frosted with white chocolate ganache

white cupcakes with white icing and chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing arranged together on a serving plate (and vice versa)

A cute and easy way to decorate black and white cupcakes.
photo courtesy of rkbcupcakes

cupcakes with tops decorated with half chocolate and half vanilla poured fondant or ganache

devil's food cupcakes with a cloud of vanilla buttercream frosting

white chocolate cupcakes with a thick coating of dark chocolate ganache

white cupcakes with chocolate chips iced with a shiny dark chocolate glaze

You can get fancy and make designs with a toothpick using one or both colors of icing or poured fondant —buttercream doesn't lend itself to this kind of decorating.

A shiny chocolate glaze, ganache or buttercream frosting looks lovely topped with:

shaved or grated white chocolate
white sugar pearls
shredded coconut
an edging of edible white glitter or white "disco dust"
a few white polka dots
white sprinkles (jimmies)
white non-pareils

For white icing, white chocolate ganache or vanilla buttercream topping, try:

A very pretty way to decorate black and white cupcakes.
photo courtesy of buncheduptv

shaved or grated dark chocolate
an edging of edible black glitter or black "disco dust"
a few black polka dots
black sprinkles (jimmies)
black non-pareils

If you want to get really fancy with your black and white cupcakes, try decorating with small touches of gold leaf or brush on a bit of gold lustre. Now, that would be impressive!

For polka dots, gold lustre and so, so much more, check out layercakeshop.com. I have never seen such an incredible assortment of cupcake supplies in one place.

Cupcake liners and wrappers can play up your black and white theme in a big way. Don't forget about them!

In addition to solid black and solid white liners, I've seen zebra, striped, polka dotted, gingham, houndstooth, and ivy patterned ones. Who knew?

You might be interested in these pages too: