St. Patty's Day Fun

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LaLa's teacher requested these "Taste of The Rainbow" cupcakes on Family Fun's site. Now, I am not a baker by any means! My first thought when she said "rainbow cupcakes" was I would just march my happy self to Publix and get a nice baker lady to make some cupcakes with rainbows on it. She might even throw in some rainbow sprinkles. So, I went home and looked up the cupcakes to find a surprise. The batter of the cupcake was the rainbow. Hmm...how would I do that?

I read on to find out that multiple bowls would be involved and mixing of colors and careful layering of batter in little bitty cupcake liners would be involved. On top of this today we had ballet, I flooded my kitchen (forgot to turn off the water...can you say this mama needs a nap?), my Little Bit opened the fridge (so not normal for a 19 month old & is going to start a whole new mess of chaos) and dropped a bottle of syrup which cracked and exploded everywhere. The syrup explosion happened while I was leaving a message for one of LaLa's preschool parents. Yeah, they might think we are off our rocker over here in this house after that message. I have mopped and mopped and mopped and mopped. It's still sticky?!

This chaos seems to be our normal though so we just try to roll with the punches! Determined me (maybe stubborn would be a better word) still went against all odds of this crazy day to make rainbow cupcakes. Uh-oh...only two eggs! I needed one more. Off to Kroger we all go! Okay, so now we're home and I begin again. All my bowls...all my mixing of colors (This would be a great activity to do with a kid to teach color combinations! Not this mama though. I definitely did not have enough patience for the project much less to encourage a little helper on this day!) and I began! I think my oven preheated for over an hour while I meticulously dropped precise numbers of food coloring to make the six colors. For a normal person...in a normal house...with no interruptions, this would not be too difficult. It's a lot of extra work, but they end up looking super cute and unique. I am cautious about giving LaLa a lot of dye though...and these cupcakes definitely have dye in them! On a side note, you also have to use different spoons for each bowl. Yeah, they mess up your colors. It looks pretty with all the bowls...except when they were in the sink to be cleaned!

Then, you take each color (which by the way is the actual order of the rainbow) and layer the cupcake liners. Make sure to spread the batter of each color to the edge. Now, I have been known to be a perfectionist. This drove me crazy a bit. I think a few cupcakes might be missing a few colors because I would run out of batter of a one color by the time I got to the end.

Next, you cook just like the box says for cupcakes. You let them cool, remove the liners to see your amazing rainbows, and ice the top to look like a small cloud (according to the directions found here.) I have to say that their icing cloud was better than mine. However, despite the excess of dishes...despite the distractions...despite the frustration...despite reading the directions over and over...

I am quite proud of the results! I patted myself on the back and went to blog about them!

 I hope LaLa' preschool class enjoys them...

and my family since I stashed the extra to save for tomorrow's dessert and ate two while cleaning up...

and ultimately, I think they will make some proof of how wonderful mommy is fun memories of St. Patty's Day!

Check back tomorrow for the final result of my baking ordeal masterpiece!