Rainbow-Frosted Cupcakes

A wise person once said, “You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy cupcakes. And that’s kind of the same thing.”

Well, if cupcakes are happiness, what we have for you today is better than happiness.

Today we have cupcakes with rainbow frosting.

Yes. Rainbow frosting. Yay! I’ve been wanting to make these for some time now.

These cupcakes are the happiest, loveliest, most perfect little delights you could dream up. And guess what. You can make them yourself!

Yep, one of these little babies could be in your belly in a matter of minutes. Are you ready to whip some up?

Good. Let’s not put any more time between you and your little piece of heaven.

First, make some cupcakes. Because, you know, it’s not really socially acceptable to eat frosting out of the bowl with your fingers. (But off the record,
we totally endorse it.) We made vanilla cupcakes.

Second, prepare some vanilla buttercream frosting. You can use your favorite recipe, or follow ours. And you should try it. It’s finger-lickin’ good. 🙂

You’ll need:

2 sticks unsalted butter
8 cups (2lbs.) powdered sugar (no need to sift)

2 tsp. vanilla (use clear vanilla if you like a whiter frosting)

1/3 cups milk
A pinch of salt ( to cut the sweetness)

Cream the softened butter until smooth, then blend in the vanilla. Begin adding the powdered sugar and most of the milk. Beat at medium speed until the
powdered sugar is incorporated. Add the remaining milk, and mix at medium speed for another 3 to 4 minutes while scraping the sides of
the bowl occasionally. The texture will become very smooth.

Now that you have the frosting base, it’s time to add some color. Split the frosting into separate bowls. You decide how many colors you’d like to use.

Next, begin to fill the pastry bag.

Spoon in a little of color No. 1, and try to keep it close to the side of the bag so there’s room for the others. (This is tricky, but you can do it!) Spoon in color No. 2, No. 3., and however many more you have.

To ensure all of the colors will show when you frost your cupcakes, squirt a little out onto some wax paper to make sure you like what you see.

It took us a little while to get more than pink and yellow to appear, but ooh, I love that color combo!

Now it’s time to frost those cupcakes. Start piping the frosting on the edge of the cupcake and swirl your way in.

Ta da!

Because the colors will swirl together in the piping bag, each cupcake will turn out a little different. It’s all just part of the fun. When you need to refill the bag, start with a new one to avoid the colors from mixing to much because they will get muddy. And we can’t have that!