The Leprechauns Came

Last Friday, I couldn't go to bed until I crossed one last thing off of my to-do list: "Make sure the leprechauns come." Mia had been asking repeatedly when the leprechauns were going to come and bring her gold. Well, I didn't have any gold on hand, and I didn't want to run out in search of those gold foil-wrapped chocolate coins. I decided I needed to make something that would be cool enough to take place of gold. At first I wasn't sure what that could be, and then I remembered chatting with another dance mom on Tuesday who told me about making rainbow cupcakes for her daughter's birthday. It was a good time to give them a try. From the description she had given me on how to make the cupcakes, it sounded like it would take a little time, but wouldn't be too difficult. I didn't have a white cake boxed mix in the house, so I found a white cake recipe and tried it out. And I am so glad I did. This white cake recipe makes a moist, spongy cake that reminded me a sugar cookie, and most importantly in this case, it kept the food coloring nice and vibrant.

{Rainbow Colored Cake Mix}

How I Made My Cupcakes:

After making my white cake mix, I divided it into six bowls. Each bowl had about 3/4 cup cake mix in it. Then I added the food coloring. I used my regular McCormick liquid colors and just adjusted the amounts to reflect one sixth of a cake mix.I lined my muffin tin with silicone cupcake liners. 

Then, I poured a teaspoon of purple tinted cake mix into each cup. I spread it around as best I could. I had a small amount left over, which I saved.

Next came blue. Again, I used about a teaspoon for each except this time I didn't spread it around because I didn't want the colors to blend together.

The next layer is green.

After green comes yellow.

Follow that with orange.

Lastly, I topped them with red. By the end, I had realized that heaping teaspoons were the way to go because it was easier.

I had small amounts of each color remaining after filling my 12 muffin cups so I spread these into a casserole dish and made a small-ish sort of tie-dye cake along with my rainbow cupcakes.

I used Betty Crocker whipped frosting, which I had on hand already and then added star sprinkles for more color. If I hadn't had canned frosting available, I would have made this buttercream. (Honestly, I was glad I didn't need to, though, because it was after midnight before the leprechauns finished up.)

{The top view doesn't really show them to their best advantage.}

When it came to displaying the cupcakes, the leprechauns were kind of tired and running out of ideas, but I figured they would like green diapers best so I stacked them on the table next to the rainbow cupcakes.

These cupcakes turned out well. They were tasty and pretty. Mia was very excited to see that the leprechauns had come, and thankfully, she didn't even notice all of the colorful dirty dishes sitting in the sink. (Hey, I mentioned it was really late, right?)

{These cupcakes are worth the extra effort!}