FYI I know the pictures are crappy. They will get better as I blog more and more. :)
My sister and I made my daughter's birthday cupcakes. I decided I could do something unique and fun and cheap instead of spending oodles of money on something everyone else has at their first birthday parties. I'm like that, stubbornly determined to be unique. Sometimes I fail miserably, but with these cupcakes I was exceedlingly successful. They were unique, and ridiculuously delicious.
I started looking for cute cupcake ideas and came across a website that suggested using gel food coloring instead of the drops to make vivid colors in your cupcakes. From there the ideas started coming. I actually found a website that had a recipe for making colorful cupcakes. (I didn't document either website because at that time I didn't think I'd be blogging, I will reference all recipes in the future.) The cupcake recipe I found was SO much work. My recipe is work, but not NEARLY as much work.
Here goes...
The most delicious vanilla cupcake recipe, ever:
1 white cake mix
2 eggs
1 C vanilla yogurt
1/2 C milk
1/3 C vegetable oil
Gel food coloring
Stir all ingredients together until incorporated (about 30 seconds). Scrape sides of bowl and then beat on med-high speed for 2 minutes. From here you can choose to just follow the directions for cooking on the box OR you can make them colorful....
Divide the batter according to how many colors you are using. I have done this with the 4 colors for the birthday cupcakes, and with only 2 colors for football cupcakes. You can use as many or as few as you want. This would even work for one color.
Use food coloring to color batter to the intensity you would like. I seriously recommend getting gel food coloring if you want vivid colors. If you get red coloring, get "no taste". It takes VERY little of these to get very vivid colors; instead of using an entire bottle of the drops and getting runny batter and pastel colors.
Take a ziploc baggie for each color and spoon each into the bag. I only had the little baggies so I had to spoon a little at a time; it was messy and I don't recommend it! Use a big enough baggie to get all the batter for each color into the baggie. Work the batter toward one bottom corner of the baggie. You can see my baggies in the top left image. Basically the baggie will work like a pastry bag, but they're disposible and cheap. Snip the tip off ONE corner of the baggie. You'll use this to "pipe" your batter into the cupcakes. The bigger your snip the more batter will come out at one time. I suggest starting with a smaller snip and cutting it bigger if you need to.
Pipe a layer of each color into the cupcake papers. The goal is to pipe ONE layer of each color at a time (NO MOUNDS!). You'll make a swirl of each color on top of the next. You want the color to touch the paper and go all the way across and cover the entire color you put before. If you're worried you'll get the batter too thick trying to cover up the previous color, dip your finger in warm water and spread the batter out to cover the previous color. I didn't use the water, but it is an option if you're worried or if you find yourself with REALLY thick layers trying to cover things up.
If you're curious how thick each layer needs to be its just an estimate depending on how many colors you have. The more colors you use the thinner each layer needs to be. Keep in mind you only want your cupcakes to be 3/4 full of batter. Any more, and they'll be huge and impossible to frost.
Bake them according to the package directions, until a toothpick comes out dry.
Allow your cupcakes to cool COMPLETELY before you ice them. You can use any icing you want. I'll blog my icing recipe some other time.
Here's a picture of my sweet girl eating her cupcake:
