Pot of Gold at the end of the Rainbow Cupcake

I made these last year for St. Patrick's Day. My boys talked all year about the rainbow cupcakes. St. Patty's is here again...and here are the rainbow cuppy cakes. Think it will be a tradition like the green leprechaun pee they found in the toilet last year and eating Lucky Charms for breakfast! These do take a little bit of effort, patience, and love. Give yourself time to smooth the colored layers out or you will end up with a tie dye effect instead of a striped effect. (Which works). You can do these any colors you want. Or choose two colors and stripe them...whatever works. Me? I used red, orange, yellow, green and blue. Practice filling up one cup first and figure out what works. 1 tsp. , 2 tsp...of each color...etc. Then move on to factory style to finish faster. Fill up all the blue, then green, etc. You can use a cake mix or homemade batter. I doctored up a cake mix. I also rolled out store-bought Wilton ready to roll fondant (bought mine at Walmart for $8 in the cake craft area. I have enough to do quite a few more projects...) and cut out little hearts with a cookie cutter. I did this a few days in advance so they had plenty of time to harden up. Took a little pre-planning and ten extra minutes....but made a big impact on the top of the cupcakes. See the cake recipe and instructions below from Christy who got it first here. Rainbow Cupcakes

Throw the following ingredients into your cart...

1 white cake mix (I used lemon cake mix...came out delish!)

2 eggs

1 C sour cream

1/2 C milk

1/3 C vegetable oil

Combine all ingredients until mixed thoroughly. Divide batter according to how many colors you are using. I used 5 colors and it worked out to a little over 1 cup for each color. Use food coloring to color batter to desired intensity. Gel colors have the brightest colors and won't thin your batter. They can be found at Walmart or Michaels. Never buy liquid food coloring again. Swear to me!!!

To get a layered stripe like above, you'll want to put a spoonful of each color in the cupcake one at a time. The batter is thick, so it won't spread on it's own. A great tip is to set out a little bowl of water where you're working. Dip your finger in the water and then gently spread the batter out. The water will make it so the batter doesn't stick to your fingers. Another tip is to use a measuring spoon and some water to measure out how many teaspoons/tablespoons are going to fit in your cupcake. Then divide that by how many colors you have so you know how much of each color to use for each cupcake. For my 5 colors, it worked out perfectly with 2 t of each color in each cupcake. So I put in 2 t of blue in the bottom of each cupcake and spread it out with my finger. Then I put in 2 t of green on top of that, then yellow, etc. (I did use yellow food coloring to brighten up the already yellow cake batter)

Bake them according to the package directions, until a toothpick comes out dry. Makes around 15 cupcakes. Frost with your favorite frosting. I used my cream cheese frosting recipe.