Kickin' it Hippie Style....Tye-Dye Cupcakes

Colorful cupcakes can make anyone's day turn from bleh to do-able to great. Since Monday's are notorious stinky days (and I had to work 2 shifts, one being from 8am-12am) Colorful Cupcakes were definentally needed to make the day better, even at that ridiculously early hour. And in case you were wondering what I did, I'm a lifeguard, and its a fun job, except at 8 in the morning.

But, ever since I ate a rainbow cupcake from Baked By Melissa, which was way back when in May, I have wanted to make my own. I noticed many of the blogs have been posting about these colorful creations and I took the recipe from Baking Bites.

Now to begin,
First, in a medium bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Then in my Kitchen Aid mixer bowl I added the wet ingredients, sugar, eggs, vegetable oil, buttermilk and vanilla extract.

We don't keep buttermilk in the house but for baking we do use this:
What you do is add 2 tablespoons of the powder with the dry ingredients and 1/2 cup of water to the wet ingredients (this yields for 1/2 cup of buttermilk)

But back to the cupcakes...Then add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until combined (not to long...we don't want the flour to get all gluten-y)

Now the fun part, divide the batter into 5 cups or bowls or your choice.Baking Bites says to add about 1/2 a teaspoon of color to each cup but I did not feel the need to measure out so I just went with it...I had all the Wilton colors but I used regular food dye (the ones in the squeeze bottles, on the left) for the yellow, green and blue.

I accidentally added blue to two of the cups (oh no!) so being all crafty I took a knife full of the Wilton "no taste" red and added it to one of the blues to create a purple, which unfortunately was not as bright as I originally planned. I also just made a cup of red for the top layer.
These were my color cups...green, red, blue, yellow and the purple.
Assembling the cupcakes...place a spoonful of the purple batter into a greased cupcake pan
I did not want to use cupcake wrappers so I used this new pan from William-Sonoma, The bottoms just pop right out!
Continue with the rest of the colors (blue, green, yellow then red...if you want your cupcakes to be in rainbow order, but feel free to mix it up and get creative!) But bake right away so the colors don't sink too much.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes (on until puffy and toothpick comes out clean) and they look like this (minus the mess on the side...I tried to fill the cupcake holders quickly)
For the frosting I made Paula Deen's 7-Minute Frosting (recipe below) and cut it in half. To pipe on cupcakes I placed it into a plastic bag and cut the tip off. I did not want to go and get out a tip, a coupler and disposable bag, too much to wash and I was getting tired.
Now just look at those beauties.
And at this slice (or bite) of heaven. The colors make it so fun to bite into and give each one its own individuality.

Now this picture was just too fun to leave out. The concentric circles of colors made me so happy to see, I just thought it was just retro when biting into it like a normal person, but since I eat my cupcakes...differently we'll say, I was able to see this beauty.

Verdict: The guys at work loved them but next time I would probably use a different cake recipe. Don't get me wrong, this one was good, but not good enough to continue making. Also I would make them in a cupcake pan with cupcake liners and with brighter colors. I like vibrant colors.

Rainbow Cupcakes (from baking bites)
Ingredients:
* 1 cup all purpose flour
* 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 2 large eggs
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
* 1/2 cup buttermilk
* 1 tsp vanilla extract
* red, yellow, green and blue food colorings
Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease 10 cups from a 12 cup muffin tin (or line with paper cups).
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, eggs, vegetable oil, buttermilk and vanilla extract. Pour in dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
Divide batter evenly into 5 small bowls; each should have a little more than 1/3 cup batter (approx 6 tbsp or so for each).
Add about 1/2 tsp food coloring to each bowl to make red, orange, yellow, green and blue batters. Stir well, so no streaks of plain batter remain. Add additional food coloring if necessary.
Starting with the blue batter, add a small spoonful to each of the 10 grease muffin cups (just over 1/2 tbsp in each). Repeat with all remaining colors, working from green to yellow to orange to red, adding each subsequent spoonful on top of the previous color. Do not attempt to spread the layers of color out (as it can cause layers to combined), but allow them to spread on their own.
Bake for about 15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Cool cupcakes on a wire rack before frosting.
Makes 10


Paula's Seven Minute Frosting (from foodnetwork.com or Paula Deen's Cookbook)
Ingredients:
* 1 1/2 cups sugar
* 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar or 1 tablespoon white corn syrup
* 1/8 teaspoon salt
* 1/3 cup water
* 2 egg whites
* 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions
Place sugar, cream of tartar or corn syrup, salt, water, and egg whites in the top of a double boiler. Beat with a handheld electric mixer for 1 minute. Place pan over boiling water, being sure that boiling water does not touch the bottom of the top pan. (If this happens, it could cause your frosting to become grainy). Beat constantly on high speed with electric mixer for 7 minutes. Beat in vanilla.

And just one more picture because cupcakes are just so photographic.

with love and cupcakes,
CookTeen