Rose Bowl Cupcakes

• 1 Box Duncan Hines White Cake mix
• 1 1/3 Cups Water
• 2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil
• 3 Large Egg Whites
• colored food gel
• 1 jar strawberry preserves (or your jelly/jam/preserves preference)

Frosting:

• 8oz cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/2 vanilla bean, scraped out insides
• 2 1/2 tsp. rosewater
• 1 1/2 tb. milk
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar

1. 1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. If you have a darker pan, preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. 2) Follow directions on Duncan Hines White Cake mix box for mixing the batter.
3. 3) Take 1 cup of batter and move to a separate bowl. This is for one of the colors.
4. 4) Taking your food gel coloring, use enough gel to get to your desired team color. I used red and white for my team colors. So for the 1 cup batter, I added a couple toothpicks dipped in gel to get to the red coloring I desired.
5. 5) Fill cupcake liners with the batter that you have the most. You will fill the liners with about 2 tbs. of this batter. Then you will add about 1tb. of the other colored batter to the top of the other color. To get the swirled pattern, I used a butter knife to swirl the batter.
6. 6) Bake cupcakes for 18-22 mins. Let completely cool before filling and frosting your cupcakes. For filling the cupcakes with the strawberry preserves, I used a bismark tip #230 on a decorating bag. Put jar contents into the decorating bag and fill cupcakes.

7. Frosting directions:

1. Add cream cheese and sugar to a mixing bowl, and mix with an electric mixer until smooth. Add rosewater, milk, and insides of vanilla bean.
2. Feel free to decorate cupcakes as desired with sprinkles, candied rose petals, or edible glitter.