You CAN make homemade Rainbow Cupcakes with this easy recipe and tutorial! Delicious vanilla rainbow cupcakes topped with yummy Cream Cheese Frosting.
I know how much you all love my Rainbow Cake – and this Easy Rainbow Cupcakes recipe is an easier, quicker version of that cake! It’s perfect for a celebration, kids birthday party, pride parties, or anyone who loves RAINBOWS (hello!).
When I made my Rainbow Cake for the hundredth time the other week and shared a picture of it on my Instagram (come say hey!), my parents commented to point out that THEY (my own parents!) had never tried my most famous creation!
So I thought, FINE! If they want Rainbow Cake, they’ll get it.
Oddly (realising now I’m probably adopted!) none of my immediate family have much of a sweet tooth AT ALL (and neither does my husband, though he does change his tune when there’s a particular amazing cake around, like my homemade carrot cake!)
So I knew that despite the Instagram teasing, there’s no way they’d eat an entire Rainbow Cake. And I would have to eat the whole thing (challenge accepted)!
SO I made these Rainbow Cupcakes instead! They’re sooo pretty and delicious too – they’re topped with my foolproof cream cheese frosting and adorable bright sprinkles.
Rainbow Cupcakes taste juice the same as normal vanilla cupcakes, and mine are swirled with my delicious cream cheese frosting – my favourite! If you prefer, you could use regular vanilla buttercream, or even a chocolate or strawberry flavoured cream cheese frosting.
What colourings do I need to make Rainbow Cupcakes?
You will need gel food colourings to make these Rainbow Cupcakes – you can get them in Lakeland stores, cake decorating shops, or online! I often buy mine from eBay.
Although they’re about £2 per pot, they keep for years, and you can use them to tint cake batter to make Rainbow Cake, Red Velvet Cupcake, Ombre Cakes… and to colour frostings beautiful colours too.
The colours I used were (click on the link to buy each one):
- Sugarflair Christmas Red
- Sugarflair Melon
- Sugarflair Party Green
- Sugarflair Ice Blue
- Americolor Electric Purple (or you can also use Sugarflair Grape Violet)
Where can I get rainbow sprinkles?
The ones I used here were from Homesense, or you can pick some up in your local supermarket or cake decorating shop. I love really bright sprinkles, and you can find some really great ones at eBay too.
This is the nozzle I used to pipe Cream Cheese Frosting swirls on top of my cupcakes – a 2D tip. It’s really easy and quick to make a pretty swirl using it (see a video showing how here).
Of course, if you prefer just use a spoon to dollop the frosting on and spread it around before topping with sprinkles 🙂
Once you’ve made your cupcakes, keep them in the fridge until about an hour before you’re ready to eat them and they should taste delicious.
- For the cupcakes:
- 200g unsalted butter
- 200g caster sugar
- 4 medium eggs
- 1 tbsp vanilla bean paste or extract
- pinch salt
- 200g self-raising flour
- 1tsp baking powder
- Gel food colouring in: red, yellow, green, blue and purple (click on links to see the ones I used)
- For the cream cheese frosting:
- One batch of my Foolproof Cream Cheese Frosting recipe
- For the Rainbow Cupcakes
- First, preheat your oven to 160C/gas mark 4 and pop some large cupcake cases in a 12 hole muffin/cupcake tin.
- Have your gel food colours to hand, along with four small bowls (cereal sized) before you start.
- In a stand mixer, or by hand, beat together the butter and sugar with the vanilla until it's completely mixed and light and fluffy. Beat in two eggs followed by half of the flour (100g), then the other two eggs and final 100g of flour, plus the salt and baking powder.
- Next, divide your mixture into five bowls (so four additional bowls to the one you're already using), putting roughly the same amount of mixture into each bowl. Start with your purple gel food colouring, using a flat knife to scoop a pea sized amount of colouring into a bowl of batter. Mix the colour in thoroughly, adding more gel if necessary until you have the colour you're happy with. Then, use a tablespoon to divide the mixture into your cupcake cases, one scant tbsp in each.
- Repeat with the blue, green, yellow and red colourings and your remaining batter, and then bake your cupcakes for 15-20 minutes in the middle of your oven. We don't want to bake them on the top shelf as they will brown and you'll lose some of the effect of the rainbow!
- Make up the cream cheese frosting according to the recipe (when the cupcakes are baking is a good time) and use it to frost your cupcakes before topping with sprinkles.
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These would be so perfect for a kids birthday party – can you imagine?!
There’s a whole world of rainbow bakes out there – take a look at Pinterest for even more inspiration!
Follow Kerry {KerryCooks.com}’s board RAINBOW Baking on Pinterest.
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Atinuke Alder says
April 8, 2018 at 9:25 pmHi kerry, i cant wait to try your cupcake recipe! I want to bake 24 cupcakes so i do need to literally double up on all The ingredients?
ThanKs,
AtI
Kerry Cooks says
April 14, 2018 at 8:51 pmAbsolutely! That should work
Eda Hirschberg says
March 23, 2018 at 9:37 amHi Kerry,
Have you ever tried Replacing butter with ghee for both the cupcakes and frost recipes? Do you think i would get the same result? ThankS.
Eda
Kerry Cooks says
March 23, 2018 at 9:31 pmI haven’t … I’ve never heard of people using ghee in baking but it may be a thing… maybe research it online before trying it 🙂
DeeK says
September 15, 2017 at 1:30 pmThank you so much for this recipe. I made your rainbow cupcakes today and decorated them like little unicorns. So cute! Wish I could post a pic here and show you.
Kerry Cooks says
September 15, 2017 at 6:57 pmAw that sounds awesome! You could post a pic on my facebook page if you use fb – I’d love to see!
Rachel @ GameVillage says
May 4, 2017 at 10:54 amthis is such a unique cake!! I haven’t come across anything like this before. Very colorful 🙂
Jennifer says
February 15, 2017 at 7:29 amHi Kerry, I have never seen a beautiful cupcake like yours. My children love cupcakes very much and this is the ideal cupcake that I should make for them. Thanks for the wonderful recipe!
Sharon Feekins says
February 11, 2017 at 2:02 pmFeb 11th 2017
Hi I’m planning to make the rsinbow cup cakes fOr a party. Will they freeze ok ? I need to bake about 10 daYs before and ice day begire requied ? About 30 CUPCAKES ?
Kerry Cooks says
February 12, 2017 at 8:36 pmHey Sharon – absolutely! You can bake them up to three months before and freeze unfrosted, then make the frosting a couple of days before you need them and take the cupcakes out of the freezer to defrost overnight 🙂
Heather @ Sugar Dish Me says
January 16, 2017 at 7:03 pmRainbow cake win! These are gorgeous!
Heather @ Sugar Dish Me recently posted…Easy Shrimp Scampi
Mia says
September 18, 2016 at 6:43 amKerry, how can i replace the self raising flour with normal flour and baking powder, baking soda, and….? We don’t get self raising flour here in Taiwan :'(
Kerry Cooks says
September 20, 2016 at 12:17 pmHi Mia – absolutely! 🙂
Sarah (@tamingtwins) says
February 22, 2016 at 4:17 pmThese are AMAZING! I LOVE THEM! I want them for my birthday… Gorgeous idea and what a lovely surprise when people bite into them.
Nayna Kanabar says
February 22, 2016 at 12:30 pmThese are so colourful and look really cute.
Dannii @ Hungry Healthy Happy says
February 22, 2016 at 12:25 pmThese just look so much fun! I am going to be seeing my niece soon and I wanted to do some baking with her. I think it is going to HAVE to be these!
Kerry Cooks says
February 22, 2016 at 1:49 pmAw, hope she likes them! x
Emily says
February 22, 2016 at 11:32 amAwesome! I need to expand my Sugarflair collection too. That Christmas red looks better than the scarlet I have which is quite pinky xx
Kerry Cooks says
February 22, 2016 at 1:50 pmYeah it’s a really bright red! If you use a lot of red it’s worth getting one of these – it’s a BIG one! http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sugarflair-Maximum-Concentrated-Paste-Edible-Food-Colouring-Colour-42g-RED-EXTRA-/140918732783
Emma @ Supper in the Suburbs says
February 22, 2016 at 9:27 amKerry these look absolutely fab! Another viral sensation perhaps?
Kerry Cooks says
February 22, 2016 at 9:37 amThank you! I just love rainbows! 🙂