Rainbow Cupcakes

Here are some rainbow-filled cupcakes to brighten up your day. Yes, they probably are full of E-numbers, but I'm 21, not five, so I can eat as many of these as I like (assuming that obesity is not part of this equation)!

These cupcakes didn't come without sacrifice, though. I always make a huge effort to keep the outsides of my food dye bottles clean, but somehow I always end up with hands that appear to have contracted gangrene. The blue dye is the worst culprit and has spread itself all over the bottles of the other dyes, so even when I'm not using blue I look like my fingers are on the verge of falling off. I even ended up with blue lips this time - I was a little careless when licking the excess batter off the spoon I used to mix in the blue dye. Serves me right for indulging myself like that really, doesn't it? Maybe I should recreate this look next week for Halloween...

If you want to have a bit of fun with your baking, or even cheer someone up with a burst of colour, I would definitely recommend these cupcakes. My friends definitely appreciated the effort on the colour front, too!

Makes 12
Ingredients

• 200g Self Raising Flour
• 300g Butter
• 200g Caster Sugar (or 120g Fruit Sugar)
• 250g Icing Sugar
• 2 Tbsp Milk
• 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
• Sprinkles
• Red, Blue, Green, Yellow and Purple Food Colouring (gel is best for strong colours)

Recipe

• Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan and line a cupcake tin with cupcake cases.
• Cream 200g of the butter and the caster sugar together until light and fluffy.
• Beat in the eggs one at a time, then seive the flour and baking powder into the batter and fold it them in.
• Stir in the milk, ensuring that the batter has a soft dropping consistency.
• Divide the batter into seven, then colour each part a different colour of the rainbow.
• Dive the red batter between the cases and spread it around so that it covers the bottom of each one. Repeat the process with the orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet shades, making sure that the batter is spread to the edges each time.
• Bake for 22 mins, or until a skewer comes out clean.
• To make the buttercream, cream the icing sugar and remaining butter together, then beat in the vanilla extract. If the buttercream feels too stiff to pipe, add a couple of drops of milk to loosen it a bit.
• When the cupcakes are completely cool, pipe the buttercream onto the tops. I used a star tip nozzle and piped in a spiral, working my way out from the centre. Decorate as you please.

For tips on baking, take a look at The Basics.

I've got an idea for an incredibly indulgent sounding cheesecake for the weekend, though as you all know I'll do my best to make it even a little bit better for you than it should be. Hopefully it will turn out as it looks in my head, and I'll have something spectacular for you on Sunday! See you then.