Friday, January 14, 2011

Sunshine, cuppycakes and RAINBOWS

I forgot what brought this on, but I had a hankering for the happiness only a child can experience with colours and food... so I brainstormed and concluded "anything that looks like its packed with sparkles, unicorns, rainbows, sugar and tartrazine is generally what children want their happiness made from". Combining cupcakes and rainbows had the desired effect. So... another recipe to try out that's fun and tasty and has the tooth-rotting equivalence of a sugary Chernobyl!


Rainbow vanilla cupcakes

Ingredients (~ 24 cupcakes OR 12 muffin-sized cupcakes ;P)

150g softened butter
300g caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
400g self raising flour
250ml milk
4 eggs
food colouring... however many you like (I limit it to 5 at the most: red, yellow, green, blue and purple)

1) Lay out a cupcake/muffin tin and line 12 or 24 of the moulds with paper cupcake cups and set aside. Combine sugar and butter in a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until smooth. Add vanilla extract and eggs. Mix well.
2) Add the flour and gently mix, adding the milk gradually to the mixture. Make sure that there are no flour or butter lumps... (those are gross in any cake/baked good).

3) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

4) Separate batter evenly into 5 (or however many) bowls for each individual colour you wish to make your rainbows with. In each batter bowl add a few drops of the colour you desire and stir it in with a teaspoon (each bowl will need its own teaspoon). Divide each coloured batter bowl amongst the cupcake cups, approx. 2 teaspoons of each colour -layered- per cupcake cup.
5) Place the tray in the oven for 25mins or until cupcakes are cooked through - poking a wooden skewer or toothpick in the centre of the cupcake should come out clean when the cupcake is cooked. Place on a cooling rack for 5 minutes before removing from the tin.

Enjoy eating Sunshine and Happiness!!