Rainbow Cupcakes

This is not an original idea, but it went along with the Care Bears party theme. I used this photo for inspiration. There are lots of variations all over the internet, but here is how I made these cupcakes for Mia to take to school on her birthday. I briefly flirted with the idea of making the inside layered with rainbow colors like I had done last March, but I decided that the work I was putting into the outside was more than enough for something that was going to be served to a bunch of kindergarten kids. They looked nice, and they were tasty, too.

1. First, I made a double batch of my favorite white cake recipe, which yielded 28 cupcakes. I made them in rainbow striped cupcake liners which I had gotten at Jo-Ann. (Of course, you can use store-bought cake mix. This is just how I did it.)
2. Next, I made a batch of buttercream frosting. (Again, use store bought if that is your preference, but in my opinion, you cannot beat homemade frosting.) I added 5 drops of neon blue food coloring and mixed it in with my hand mixer, which I had already used to make the frosting. I used an angled spatula to frost my cupcakes.
3. I bought two packages of Airhead Xtremes Sweetly Sour Belts candy from Wal-mart. The flavor is called "Rainbow Berry" and they were about $1.28 a package. (I actually had to go back to buy a second bag after discovering that one bag has only 20 strips, so use this information to plan accordingly.) These come in strips that are about 5" long, and I cut them to about 3" and inserted each end into the frosting. Keeping them longer meant that the rainbows caved in on themselves, and just did not work to make the rainbows I was hoping for. I then saved the extra cuttings for snacking.
4. I made the clouds by putting Cool Whip (left over from the layered rainbow Jell-O cups that I served at the party) into a baggie, snipping off a corner, and piping it onto the frosting.