My Mom is a really creative woman. I didn’t realize it until I grew up and became a mother myself. Now that I look back on the birthday parties she threw and the incredible cakes she created, I’m really amazed at the things she came up with back in the day when you couldn’t run to Target or Walmart and basically buy a party in a bag. Halloween costumes were no exception. We never, ever had store-bought costumes growing up. My Mom was a great seamstress and her creativity had no boundaries. I look at old family pictures and I love how she took simple ideas and turned them into something fun. Take me for example, around age 5:
That my friends, is a rainbow. And I thought it was the coolest costume ever. I was obsessed with this chick, and if you look at every picture I ever created out of any sort of art media between the ages of 3 and 9, it undoubtedly included 3 things: hearts, flowers, and rainbows. To this day, I still get a little bit giddy inside when I see all of those colors together. Something about rainbows just makes me happy.
So it’s no wonder these cupcakes make me smile. Every time 🙂
Gel food colors work especially well for this. Gel color adds a ton of color with a small amount of dye. You can find gel colors at craft stores like Michaels and Roberts, and in the cake decorating isle of Walmart. If using red, make sure to get the one that says “No Taste”
Divide your batter and tint each one
Then layer it by color into the cupcake papers. (See my tips in the recipe for easy layering). Sometimes I do red on top and sometimes I do the reverse so blue is on top.
Bake them up
And cool them on a rack before frosting.
Then you can frost and decorate to your heart’s desire!
The best part comes when you peel off that paper. Use white liners to show off the colors, or foil or dark liners to make it a surprise!
Even better is taking the first bite and seeing the inside:
Try them with the color of your favorite sports team, or your kids’ school colors. They’re sure to be a hit!
Colorburst Cupcakes
1 white cake mix
2 eggs
1 C yogurt (any smooth textured fruit flavor is fine!) or sour cream
1/2 C milk
1/3 C vegetable oil
Combine all ingredients until incorporated (about 30 seconds). Scrape sides of bowl and then beat on med-high speed for 2 minutes.
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, but each cake brand will be slightly different.
Use food coloring to color batter to desired intensity.
To get a layered stripe like I used, 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.
Bake them according to the package directions, until a toothpick comes out dry.
I topped mine with this frosting.
Questions & Reviews
I wanted to have some sort of rainbow food for my GSA booth at my schools involvement fair next week… these look perfect! Can’t wait to try them out. Thanks so much!
These are adorable! I plan on making these for my girls, however I will be using a gluten free cake mix (Betty Crocker) due to their allergies. The gluten free mix calls for different ingredient add ins than a normal cake mix. Is it safe to assume that I can just follow the cake recipe on the box and use the same assembling steps in this recipe?
Sorry for the simplicity of my question. I am very new to baking and even newer to gluten free baking. 🙂
I imagine that will be fine! 🙂 Good luck!
Amazing idea, my daughters 6th birthday is coming up in March and she would love these. Thanks for sharing this recipe with us.
I made cupcakes like this that were red white and blue for 4th of july
Have you ever baked this as a cake?
Yep, you can do it any way you like 🙂
These look amazing! I am assuming that the yogurt is for moistness – is that ( or sour cream) a must ingredient?
You definitely want the yogurt–it’ll make the cupcakes delicious (and yep, it’s for moistness).
wait, it’s got to matter what I add. I mean, I would only add if there was a benefit but this mix seems to have the same ingredients others substitute. I think I better stick with the box as I have limited time and one shot :). I like your initial idea but am afraid it will be too thick to get neatly in the jars.
Maybe this mix doesn’t need doctoring as it uses 3 eggs already and milk and oil, not water (3 eggs, 2/3 cups milk and oil (forget how much)
Yes, we bake lots of cupcakes in jars around here!
It doesn’t really matter how much you add to your mix because you can always just make more jars, so just add what you like. We often add sour cream or pudding to doctor up our mixes. Good luck!
Question for you. I bought an organic white cake mix to do something similar that I saw on another site (rainbow in a jar http://runwithglitter.blogspot.com/2011/07/jar-of-happiness-for-my-birthday.html). I like the idea of doctoring up the mix; however, I need to get my batter into a 1 pint canning jar. Since this is so think I’m wondering what I can do to improve the batter so it’s more homemade-ish but not thicken too much? Maybe just add an extra egg, a couple drops of vanilla and use milk instead of water? Just curious what you think.
For those of you wondering, you can actually BAKE your cupcakes IN the canning jars. I’ve done lots of reading on this the past couple of days. You bake right in the jar, filling about a third of the jar. I’m making Chanukah gifts so my colors will be yellow, blue, and maybe a layer of plain mix not colored so I have the Chanukah colors. Then I will personalize the jars with a paint pen, add a piece of fabric on the lid, ribbons.
Thanks for the suggestions in advance.
These cubcakes are so cute!
My kids can’t have artificial food dye (and I avoid it for me too) so I want to attempt something with natural colors. I have used natural food dye in the past, but I’m out right now and can’t buy more at the moment. I don’t want to experiment too much with different foods for the colors because I don’t want to ruin it, so I’m just going to do yellow and purple for my first attempt for my daughter’s 5th birthday party tomorrow.
I think I will just use a lemon cake mix for the yellow (it gets the color from the egg yolks) but the purple will be a little trickier to figure out.
I will use some blueberry juice for purple (I’m using a vanilla cake mix for that one) but I don’t want the batter to be too runny and get messed up. Should I use less milk if I’m adding blueberry juice? I won’t add tons, just enough to get some nice color. I’ve also heard that if you boil the plant based juice you want to use for coloring, it concentrates it so it’s more color for less liquid than it would be using straight juice. I’m going to try that. Also, I plan to use yogurt, is there much of a difference in flavor between plain and vanilla?
I’ll leave a link with pictures after I make them! Thanks so much!