Rainbow Cupcakes

Hello, my friends! It has been a while since I posted, I know, but life got in the way :D We actually took the kids on a couple road trips, one to Crystal Cave in Kutztown, PA and the other to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, MD. That was such an amazing day! We spent the morning and afternoon in Baltimore, and then on the way home we swung through Washington D.C. and showed the kids the White House and all the amazing memorials. A.J. and Nick were all about the Lincoln Memorial, because, and I quote "That's the same statue that's in Night At the Museum 2, Mom!"

 

Anyway, we had a blast, but I'm back now, and in such a great mood! Hanging out with my kids makes me happy, and here's some other things that make me happy: rainbows, cupcakes, Channing Tatum, and Nora Roberts. I can't give you Channing or Nora, but I can give you rainbows and cupcakes... together!

 

I know rainbow cakes were EVERYWHERE for a while. Not being a girl who likes to jump on the bandwagon, I stayed away from them. Also, I saw so many pics posted of cakes where the colors had run together and ended up making this weird, grayish purple cake that made me think of zombie flesh. So, I give you rainbow cupcakes!

 

 

Slightly more time consuming then the cake version, BUT... prettier, and the colors don't run together.

 

Again, this is something I did before I started the blog, so there aren't step-by-step photos, but I don't feel they'd be needed in any case. This couldn't be more simple. It IS time consuming, but well worth it in the end.

 

All you really need to do is take a box of white cake mix, mix it according to directions, and then divide the batter evenly into six bowls. Take your choice of food coloring and add it to the bowls to get purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. ( I used the regular food coloring, so I had to play around to get the right hue. I've never used GEL coloring, but I've heard that the colors are more vibrant. If you know for sure, leave me a comment!)

 

Now here's the time sucker! You need to layer each color one at a time into your cupcake liners. You could certainly use a spoon and carefully spread out each layer over the last one, but I found that the easiest way to do it was to scoop each color into it's own Ziplock bag, snip off a corner, and pipe the batter into the liner.

 

See, you want to make sure to keep the layers thin in order to get all of the colors in without overfilling the liner. You also have to be careful to completely cover each previous layer with the new layer, in order to prevent colors mixing!

 

I'd also recommend sticking with the order of colors used in the picture. It's a tad blurry, I apologize, but the order is, from the bottom up:

Purple

Blue

Green

Yellow

Orange

Red

 

The cupcake in the picture is one that I made using a spoon to spread each color, so as you can see... there's too much purple and not enough orange. It was hard to get the layers spread out completely without mixing them, so that's why I switched to the Ziplock baggies. Much easier, neater, and less cleanup!

 

Once you get the layers done, just pop them in the oven and bake according to box directions. Voila! Pretty rainbow cupcakes! One of my favorite things about them is that if you use the foil liners, nobody will know what the cupcake looks like until they peel the liner off. I wish I had take a picture of a whole one to show you how cool they look on the outside, but I didn't so you'll just have to make them yourself to see! :)

 

Well, there it is, folks. These are perfect for St. Patty's Day, school bake sales, birthday parties, football games, etc. If you're making a lot of them, you could recruit some friends and set up a little assembly line and have one person do each color.

 

I hope you make them and love them as much as I did! Let me know how they turn out in the comments below.

 

Lots of love,

Brandie