Rainbow Cupcakes

I was searching the internet looking for a fun dessert for the boys and I to make for St. Patty's Day. I found these yummy cupcakes at familyfun.com They just looked so bright and beautiful and even though chocolate is usually what I look for in a dessert, I just had to make these cupcakes. The boys really had fun helping me mix the color into the cake batter and it was a good lesson on colors and how red and blue make purple, red and yellow make orange, that kind of thing. Also we talked about the rainbow and the order of the colors and sang a rainbow song.

"Red, orange and yellow.
Green, blue and purple.
God made the rainbow bright and beautiful!"

Not sure who made up that song and I can't think if the tune belongs to any other popular song....if anyone knows please tell me.

I have seen the idea of making a rainbow cake over at the idearoom, which is a fantastic blog, by the way. Her rainbow cake looks amazing and I definitely want to give it a try one day. I just thought the cupcake idea would be more fun for the boys at their age.

Here they are helping with the cake.





Now we are adding in the color.



There's our rainbow of cake mix.



Now layer by layer (I should have used the back of the spoon to gently spread each layer, by the way.)







I made mine too full and they ran over, luckily I baked them inside another pan which caught the spill over. But here they are, and I think because of me not spreading out each layer, they are not layered but more swirled. Although if you cut the top off the cupcake you could see the layers perfectly that way. I didn't get a picture of that though.





Here are the finished cupcakes. I used vanilla icing instead of the whipped cream it called for in the recipe. I had vanilla icing in my pantry and no whipped cream. We decorated the tops with Lucky Charms "sprinkles". The kids loved this and I have to admit they were pretty good cupcakes.



Here's Simon enjoying his.



He was sporting a green mohawk for the day. I just used the green Crayola brand finger paint...washes right out!