Rainbow Cupcakes Are a Fun Way to Celebrate & Kids Love Making Them

Inspiring creativity isn’t just my blog theme, it’s a way of life for me. I can get inspired to be creative by the most random things. About this time last year I was playing around with cakes and cupcakes when I got the idea to create a fun cupcake for St. Patrick’s Day. I decided to experiment with coloring cake batter. I’d already done a few solid color cakes, but I thought to myself why not push it a little further? Could I really make rainbow cupcakes?

Inspired Creativity

I got the idea to try creating a rainbow cake layer. I knew one of two things were going to happen. Either I would produce a really awesome rainbow cupcake, or it would create a big grey blob. I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome!

Single layer Rainbow Cupcake by Rhonda Sue

And so the Rainbow Cupcake was born!

Just how did I create this colorful single layer cupcake? It was actually easier to do than you would think. Disclaimer: it does take more time to assemble than a traditional cupcake, but the outcome is worth it!

Can Do How To

Let’s start with the cake. You can use any white cake recipe or box mix you prefer. Yellow cake mix will also work, but it will change the hue of the colors. You will also need 6 colors of food dye. I prefer the Wilton Icing Gel colors. They sell an 8 color set that has the 6 colors you need; purple, blue, green, yellow. orange, and red, plus 2 additional colors; pink and brown. The Wilton Icing Gel colors are perfect for both the cake and icing coloring. They are concentrated so you use less which makes them last a very long time, and they are thick so they don’t spill and make a mess like traditional liquid drop dyes.

Start by preheating your oven to 350° F. Mix your cake batter according to the directions in your recipe or on the box (if you’re using a box mix). Separate the cake mix evenly into 6 small bowls. It doesn’t take much of one color to create these beautiful rainbow cupcakes.

White cake batter divided evenly into 6 small bowls.

Rainbow of Colors

Color each bowl of icing a different color. If you’re using the Wilton Icing Gel colors, dip a toothpick into the gel container and swirl it around in your icing. It doesn’t take a lot of the gel to make a great color. If you’d like the color to be a little richer, you can add more gel color. Be sure to use a new, clean toothpick each time you add more color. You don’t want to reuse a toothpick and end up contaminating your gel color container with icing.

Handy hint: Consider using gloves when working with food coloring to save yourself the hassle of dyed fingers. No matter how careful you are, more than likely you will end up with food dye on your hands if you don’t.

Now that you have all six of your batter colors, it’s time to assemble the cupcakes.

With just a little bit of the Wilton Icing Gel Color, you get vibrant colors of cake batter & icing.

Assembly

Line your cupcake pan with white cupcake liners (The white paper will allow the rainbow colors of the cupcakes to show through after baking). Using a regular spoon, scoop one color of batter into the bottom of each cupcake liner. A traditional rainbow is purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. You can choose if you’d like to have purple on the bottom or top. I chose to start with purple.

If your batter recipe tends to be thicker, like mine, you can either use the tip of the spoon or your finger to spread out the batter, or add 1 – 2 Tbs more of your recipe liquid (milk or water) to thin out the batter slightly.

Continue on to the next color, and repeat until you have all 6 colors layered into the cupcake liner. This is the part where I was originally skeptical. As they were right now, they looked like they were going to end up more of a hot mess than a rainbow.

The edges are what’s most important.
Try loading the cupcakes around the edges first.

Baking

Bake them in your preheated oven for 15 – 18 minutes. When the cupcakes are done, remove them from the oven and let them rest for 5 minutes before removing them to a cooling rack. Let the cupcakes cool completely before decorating.

Single layer Rainbow Cupcakes by Rhonda Sue

So now that you have these amazing a single layer rainbow colored cupcakes, how can you decorate them? There are many different ways to decorate these adorable cupcakes. You can top them with plain white icing to mimic a cloud for a rainbow themed party, and you can even add gold foil chocolate coin in the icing cloud for a St. Patrick’s Day “Luck O’ the Irish” twist. I chose to continue with my rainbow theme by using a bag brush striping technique.

Rainbow striped icing – Striping the bag only, not inside the tip.

Rainbow Icing – It’s in the Bag

To create this rainbow striped icing, you will need white icing (either homemade or canned), cake decorator bag (3 -4 per dozen cupcakes), icing coupler and/or tip of your choice (I used the large 1M tip without a coupler), the 6 rainbow colors of Wilton Icing Gel colors, and a small paint brush.

Prepare your decorator bag with your coupler and/or tip. Here’s a great video from Rosanna Pansino that shows you how.

Now, stripe the inside of your decorator bag using the paint brush dipped in the Wilton Icing Gel color, doing one color at a time. I like to use the bag seam as a guide for the first & 4th colors to help keep my stripes even. I also like to stripe a couple bags all at the beginning. It makes it easier on you, and helps keep the color more consistent than trying to refill a used bag.

Stripe the inside of the decorator bag with the Wilton Icing Gel Color.

Next, add your white icing into the decorator bag(s). Squeeze out the air as you push the icing down toward the tip, twist the open end of the bag, and you’re ready to decorate!

This technique works with many color options.

Swirl It

I just did a standard Swirl (think soft serve ice cream) to top the cupcakes. It’s easy to do and looks great with the rainbow stripping. Have some fun and play around with it. You’ll be surprised with what you can create!