These vibrant Tie Dye Cupcakes are perfect for a summer barbecue or kids birthday party. And you won’t believe how easy they are to make!

These swirly and colorful cupcakes can be whipped up quickly and are easy for kids to help make.

We used a boxed cake mix shortcut, but if you’d prefer to make these from scratch, check out our x cupcake recipe. The frosting is from scratch, though – there is truly no substitute for homemade buttercream!

You can make these tie dye cupcakes a couple different ways – dying the batter a few different colors and swirling them together, or just adding a few drops of food dye to the portioned out muffins. I found it easier to do the second option with all of the kids (and hey, less dishes for clean up) but the first method will definitely result in more saturated cupcakes.

Also, while there are ways to make that swirly frosting without this special icing tip – I highly recommend it. Your results will be flawless!

Tie Dye Cupcakes Ingredients

• 1 box funfetti cake mix (plus ingredients called for on box)
• Food dyes of choice
• 1 cup butter
• 3-4 cups icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2-3 Tablespoons cream

Kitchen Tools You May Find Helpful

• Hand or stand mixer
• Muffin tin
• Reusable silicon cupcake liners
• 3-color frosting coupler with decoding bags & tips

How to Make Rainbow Swirl Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 375°F. Prepare the cupcake batter according to package directions.

Pour batter into cupcake liners and add a few drops of the different colors of food dye directly onto each cupcake. Use a toothpick to swirl the colors in.

(You can alternatively dye 1/4 cup of cake batter and swirl approximately 1 teaspoon into each cupcake and repeat with at least one additional color.)

Bake until the tops are set and an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

To make the frosting:

Combine the butter, sugar and vanilla extract with a mixer. Add the cream slowly until you reach your desired consistency.

Portion out into 3 bowls.  Choose one color of food dye for each bowl, stirring in dye drop by drop until you’ve reached your desired shade.

Fit your piping bag with a #12 round tip and spoon the frosting in 1 Tablespoon at a time, pushing the frosting to different sides, so you can see all 3 at once – like a Venn diagram.

TIP: A tri-color frosting coupler is an inexpensive kitchen tool that makes it a breeze to frost swirls of different colors at the same time.

Makes 24 tie dye cupcakes.

Be sure to save this Rainbow Swirl TIE DYE Cupcake Recipe on Pinterest:

Grab your free printable for our Tie Dye Cupcake recipe:

Have you ever made tie dye with your kids? Let us know if you try this recipe and how they liked it!

For more delicious and fun cupcake recipes, check out our Pastel & Gold Unicorn Cupcake or our Cookie Monster cupcake recipe.