Looking for the perfect rainbow cupcake recipe?
Look no further, you’re in the right spot! 😉
I made these when my little guy turned 4 this past St. Patrick’s Day.
They were the perfect lucky rainbow birthday treats, and so much easier to make than you might think!
This recipe starts with an embellished box cake mix that is so flavorful and moist.
Top it off with a simple homemade butter cream frosting that makes them melt in your mouth delicious.
Want the low down on how you can create them?
Check out the recipes and walk through below.
Let’s get to it!
Rainbow Cupcakes Recipe
- 1 Box White Cake Mix (Funfetti Or Other)
- 1 Cup All Purpose Flour
- 1 Cup White Sugar
- 3/4 tsp Salt
- 1 1/3 C Water
- 1 C Sour Cream
- 2 Tbs Vegetable Oil
- 1 tsp Almond Extract
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 3 whole Eggs (or 4 egg whites)
- 1 Cup Salted Room Temp Butter (2 Sticks)
- 4 1/2 Cups Powdered Sugar
- 4 Tbsp Milk or Cream
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1/2 tsp Almond Extract
- 6-8 drops green food coloring
- 2 pkgs Airhead rainbow rope candy
- 1 pkg Rollos Candies
- Edible Gold Glitter Spray (Optional)
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Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line muffin tin with paper liners (this recipe will make 24 cupcakes, so you may need to do two batches)
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Whisk dry ingredients together: cake mix, flour, sugar and salt
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Mix wet ingredients together: water, sour cream, vegetable oil, eggs & extract
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Blend wet and dry together for 1-2 minutes
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Fill paper cups 3/4 full and bake until set (12-15 minutes)
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While cupcakes are baking and cooling, blend frosting ingredients together until smooth
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portion 1 cup of white frosting aside in a small bowl
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Add 6-8 drops of green food coloring to the remaining batch of frosting
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When cupcakes are cooled pipe or spread green frosting onto cupcakes
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Cut airhead rainbow candies in half, and push into green frosting to secure in a rainbow shape
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Pipe or dot (ziplock bag works well) white frosting 'clouds' next to rainbow candies
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Unwrap chocolate Rollo candies, dust the bottom with edible gold glitter spray and secure in the frosting next to the rainbow rope as a pot of gold
Rainbow Cupcake Recipe Walkthrough
These are SO much fun to make, and easier than you might think!
First you’ll mix up your cake mix, and bake your cupcakes.
This is as easy as following the cake mix directions on the back of the box, and adding a few ingredients as listed above on the recipe card. 😉
I won’t bore you with those details because I know you’re all over it.
Let’s move on to the frosting and decor details!…
Frosting For Rainbow Cupcakes
Every good buttercream frosting starts with room temperature butter!
If you haven’t planned ahead and your sticks of butter are coming straight out of the fridge, don’t worry.
You can microwave at 5 second intervals (but no longer) turning and rotating sticks ever 5 seconds until soft (15/20 seconds).
This is my favorite frosting recipe (from my friend Lisa) and it never disappoints.
You can play with extract flavoring and colors to fit it to whatever you are looking to frost.
For these rainbow cupcakes (which I made on St. Patrick’s Day) you’ll want to divide the frosting.
Portion out a small amount of white frosting, for the clouds.
Color the remaining larger batch green, or blue would look great too!
Rainbow Cupcake Decorating Tutorial
Next up, it’s time to frost.
If you have a large piping bag, and star tip this makes process go really quickly!
If not, you can do one of two things:
- Spread a good amount of frosting on with a knife
- Make your own DIY ziplock piping bag
- Use a gallon ziplock freezer bag, fold the top over and fill with icing, cut a small hole in the corner of the bag and squeeze onto cupcakes
Next up, your rainbows!
These Airhead rainbow rope candies are SO good, it’s always a struggle for me not to eat half of the package before I get them securely fastened into the frosting.
Cutting them in half makes the the perfect size for small rainbow arches on your cupcakes.
After you’ve pushed the ends of the rainbow rope candies into the frosting, you will further secure them by adding the ‘clouds’.
Take the remaining white frosting that was set aside, and transfer it into a piping bag.
Two or three small dots along the outside edge of the rainbow seemed to do the trick!
Again, this is fast and easy with a piping bag or DIY ziplock piping bag.
Last but certainly not least are your pots of gold at the end of the rainbow!
Rollos are the perfect size for this.
And yes, they do come in gold wrapped paper, however I chose to unwrap and dust the tops with edible gold shimmer spray.
This help prevent little fingers from having to grab into the frosting and unwrap the candy. 😉
Once these are dried, simply stick them into your frosting next to the rainbow!
So festive and fun.
Happy Rainbow Cupcake Baking!
I hope you this tutorial helped equip you to bake your own rainbow cupcakes.
This recipe really is as yummy as they are adorable.
You’ll love them for any occasion!
Cheers my friends.
<3 Ang
