Looking for a fun game day dessert to impress your family and friends with? My easy tri-color football mason jar cupcakes are the perfect dessert for your next tailgating party. Wilton’s Color Swirl decorating set makes these tailgating treats easy to customize with any team colors. I promise you, the game isn’t the only thing people will be cheering for on game day once these football desserts are served!

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It’s football season again and the Hernandez family is back at it with our tailgating adventures! 

And when I say adventures, I mean it. 

If you’re new around here, you might not know that our family has season tickets for the Miami Dolphins. The crazy part is we live in Central Florida and have to drive a good 3 to 4 hours to attend these games.

I grew up in South Florida and became a Dolphin’s fan at a young age. When I met my husband, Patrick, he converted to a Dolphin’s fan and the rest is history. 

We love the team so much we named our son, Zach, after number 54, Zach Thomas. He is one of our all-time favorite players on the team. 

Last season, Zach and Zach got to meet and it was probably the best day of our Zach’s life. There were smiles, laughter, hugs, and a few shed tears between Patrick and Zach. It was a pretty awesome father and son moment! 

If that wasn’t good enough, that same day, December 9, 2018, was the day that will forever be remembered by the Dolphins as “The Miami Miracle”. In a nutshell, the Dolphins were losing against the New England Patriots by 5 points with only 7 seconds left on the clock and they were actually able to pull out a win with a fancy play. 

Beating the Patriots is like winning the Super Bowl for Dolphin fans. The entire season could be a disaster but knowing that we won against Tom Brady and Bill Belichick gives us that little bit of excitement we need to make it through another year. 

I know it’s pathetic but when your team is ranked 32 out of 32 teams in the NFL, you look for the tiniest things to keep you cheering. I’m looking forward to the day when being a Dolphin’s fan finally pays off. Fingers crossed it will happen during my lifetime… 

As you can probably tell, I can go on and on about the Dolphins, tailgating, and my hatred for the Patriots (It’s really just jealousy because they’re so good! Darn them!), but I know you’re here to see the easy tailgating dessert I’ve created. 

Ironically, we are playing the Patriots this Sunday and our friends, who happen to be Patriots fans, are coming along for the game. They were with us last year and witnessed “The Miami Miracle” too, although I’m pretty sure their views on the situation were a lot different than ours. 

What I love about football, or any sport for that matter, is it brings people together. We tease one another like crazy and say dreadful things about each other’s team, but truly it’s all in good fun. At the end of the day, we’re all looking to enjoy time with our family and friends while watching a game that’s hopefully competitive and exciting to watch.

With that spirit in mind, I decided that I was going to be a nice tailgater and not only create mason jar cupcakes for the Dolphins, but also make a Patriots variety for our friends who will be with us on Sunday. 

They’ll have to eat them sitting in our Miami Dolphin chairs, under our Dolphins tent, waving our Dolphin’s flag, but I’m sure they won’t mind.

I came up with the idea for mason jar team cupcakes because I was trying to think of a portable dessert that was easy to travel with. As I mentioned earlier, we drive almost 4 hours to get to the game so I needed to create an easy tailgating dessert that could make the long haul to the football games.

By using mason jars, I was able to make an easy individual dessert for everyone. And if there were any leftovers, the cap just got screwed on and put back in the cooler. It makes for a perfect sweet treat on the 4 hour car ride home. 

Easy Tri-Color Football Mason Jar Cupcakes

Here’s what you’ll need:

one 8 oz. mason jar per person, 1 cupcake per person in any flavor of choice (use a box mix, buy store-bought or make them homemade), any flavor white frosting (store-bought or homemade will work), food coloring (to make your team colors), Wilton ColorSwirl 3-Color Icing Decorating Coupler, Brach’s football candy corn (optional for garnish on the top)

*Note: You can go as hard or as simple as you want in terms of the cupcakes and frosting for these mason jar team cupcakes. I went with a box mix and canned frosting for my football team cupcakes. Time always dictates which route I end up taking. Do what works best for you. No judgment on my part!

If you’re making your own cupcakes, whether from a box or homemade, you’ll want to make those first and allow them time to cool completely prior to assembling your mason jar cupcakes. 

The next step is to tint your frosting using food coloring.  Make sure the frosting you use is WHITE or OFF WHITE in order to be able to tint it. 

I used Wilton food coloring gels but feel free to use any food coloring you’d like. I purchased the neon and primary color varieties. It worked out perfectly because the neon colors had the Dolphins’ team colors and the primary ones had the Patriots’ team colors.

McCormick has an awesome chart they created showing how to make the colors for all the NFL teams. If you’re making these mason jar team cupcakes for an NFL team, I’m sure this chart will come in handy. Thanks, McCormick!

Once you’ve tinted your frosting to the desired colors, place them to the side so you can start putting together your piping bags.

It’s super easy to do this when using the Wilton ColorSwirl 3-Color Icing Decorating Coupler set.

Begin by placing one coupler piece inside your piping bag. *Note that your coupler is broken into three pieces so you can make a tri-color swirl for your cupcakes!

With the coupler piece inside the piping bag, take a pair of scissors and make a score mark right above the tiny hole in the coupler. This step is very important. The three-piece coupler connects together through these series of tiny holes and grooves. 

Pull out the coupler a little bit so you can then take your scissors and cut through the piping bag. 

Push the coupler back down into the cut hole. Make sure you’ve cleared the tiny hole and groove on the coupler before moving on. 

Continue the process for the remaining two piping bags.  

With all three piping bags ready, you’ll want to transfer your frosting into them. Fold the bag over itself to avoid a huge mess.

Make sure to give the frosting a gentle squeeze and guide it towards the bottom of the piping bag. Twist the top of the piping bag so you don’t lose any frosting out the top.

Attach the three-piece coupler together making sure to use the grooves and holes we talked about earlier. This part can be really tricky so if you have someone around to help you hold it in place that would be ideal! I totally needed Zach’s help with this.

Add the piping tip of your choosing to the end of the coupler. The set comes with two tips: 1M and 1A. I used 1A for my tri-color football mason jar cupcakes.

With the tip in place, screw on the purple top and your piping bags are officially ready to go. 

With your frosting and your cupcakes done, it is now time to assemble your mason jar cupcakes. 

Place half of a cupcake in the bottom of an 8 oz. mason jar.

Next, pipe a beautiful tri-color swirl on top of the cupcake half. 

Add the second half of the cupcake on top of the frosting. 

Top with an additional swirl of your team colors. 

Finally, if you so desire, add an adorable Brach’s football candy corn on top. I personally think it’s a must because they’re so stinking cute! I used them in my football snack mix and everyone goes crazy for them. I found them at Target. 

All that’s left to do is screw on the top and they’re ready to go. If you’re making these cupcakes ahead, place them in the fridge until you’re ready to pack up your tailgating gear. I have a list of everything we bring to our tailgating parties here.

And for all my ladies, here’s a list specifically for you to help you survive game day.

One more tip before I go. Because South Florida is disgustingly hot, we keep the mason jar cupcakes in our cooler so the frosting doesn’t melt. Not sure your tailgating situation but it is definitely something for you to think about.

I’m super excited with the way these tri-color football mason jar cupcakes turned out. Could this tailgating dessert get any easier?! I hope this football dessert idea comes in handy for you this football season.

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