Rainbow Cupcakes Tutorial

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Faithful Mess For Less readers will remember that I threw my twins a rainbow party for their fourth birthday this past weekend. The party was a big hit and everyone had a great time. So, what’s a rainbow party without some rainbow cupcakes? Some of you out there might be great bakers and like to make everything from scratch. I admire you! I am not that person. If someone has a mix in a box and can save me some time I am all over that! So you can make your favorite recipe for cupcakes or pick a box mix. I won’t tell. If you are having a rainbow party, don’t miss our DIY Rainbow Party Ideas.

Rainbow Cupcakes

You will need:

Cupcake batter
Food coloring
Clear cupcake Liners
Frosting
Sprinkles
{affiliate link} Cake decorating bag and tips

I decided to use 5 colors for my cupcakes: red, orange, yellow, blue, and green. You can just use these colors or go ROY G BIV on the cupcakes. How ever many colors you decide to use, divide your batter evenly into that many bowls.

I used five colors and divided my batter into five bowls. Next, I used some food coloring gel to color each bowl of batter a different color. Gel coloring is pretty potent so make sure to start with a small amount to make sure you don’t make your color to dark. I especially had to be careful with yellow since it quickly looked orange if I used too much. If you use regular liquid food coloring you will need to use a lot to get the colors bright and vibrant.

adding food coloring to cake batter for rainbow cupcakes

Line your cupcake pan with clear cupcake liners. My batter turned out a bit thick so I added a smidge more water to thin it out a little which made for much easier pouring yet didn’t affect the taste.

I started by pouring the blue batter. You will need to push it around with a spoon if the the bottom of the liner is not fully covered.

You will layer each color on top of the previous one. I tried to keep as close to the actual rainbow pattern as I could.

Bake according to your recipe’s directions.

Just out of the oven. Aren’t they pretty!

I froze my cupcakes and thawed them the day of the party so I could frost them. They held up great. I would have never known that they spent time in the freezer.

I didn’t want to take away from the visual appeal of the cupcakes so I chose to go with a basic vanilla frosting and sprinkles.

For the frosting I just used plain vanilla frosting and a cake decorating bag with a round tip.