Rainbow Cupcakes Tutorial

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. 
For those of you looking for ideas and inspiration, I will be sharing all the different facets of the party and how easy or difficult things were to create. At the end, I will do a compilation post with a bunch of rainbow party resources to help you plan your party. 
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.You will need:

• Cupcake batter
• Food coloring 
• Clear cupcake Liners
• Frosting
• Sprinkles

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.

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.

I just did a basic circular pattern on the cupcakes. This was pretty quick and easy. 

Add some sprinkles.

When you unwrap them you are left with a surprise on the wrapper.

And here's how it looks inside. These cupcakes take a little work, but will score major points with your guests.