Rex's Rainbow Cupcakes

For Rex's first birthday we had a casual affair in the backyard with our friends and neighbors.  David grilled hot dogs and we served cupcakes for dessert.  John David enjoyed baking them with me.  He helped mix the colored batters and went crazy shaking sprinkles all over them.

The above picture is what inspired my rainbow cupcakes.  I saw a picture of this cake on a friend's Facebook page.  I loved it!  But I wasn't brave enough or confident enough to attempt a six-layer cake.  All I could imagine was the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  So I took the easy way out----all six colors of the rainbow, with zero skill necessary.

If you're curious about making them, all I used was a white cake mix.  I followed the directions, then separated the batter into six bags.  I used food coloring to dye the batter while in the bags.  John David, Daddy, and I smooshed the bags until there were mixed up.  After that, I cut the corner off of the ziploc bags and squeezed the batter---color by color in the order of the rainbow---into the cupcake cups.  

This is the only batch I photographed before putting them in the oven---but it was not the best batch.  I tried it with two different mixes.  One batch was Pillsbury and the other was Betty Crocker.  I don't remember which brand worked better, but it was the one that used more water---1 & 1/4 C vs only 1C water.  The thinner batter worked better for rainbows.  The above batch is the thicker batter and that gave them a more tie-dyed appearance.  After pouring the thicker batter, I could tell they would not look like rainbows, so I took a toothpick and swirled the batter around, which gave it a tie-dye appearance.  The thinner batter formed a true layered rainbow--see below.  I just squeezed about 2t of each color into the cups and it naturally baked up like this.

 To do the frosting, I used the premade vanilla frosting in a can.  First spooning it into a ziploc, then cutting the corner off the bag and squeezing it out in a spiral.  Each can made 12-14 cupcakes.  For 36 cupcakes I used two boxed cake mixes and 3 cans of frosting.  Sugar sugar sugar!!!  And I ran out of frosting, which left about 6-8 cupcakes without frosting.  John David happily ate them anyhow.

Rex had fun feeding himself.