Recipe: Rainbow Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

You will love these moist and rich red velvet cupcakes. But even more, you will love the rainbow colors! I made these on Sunday and they have been a hit! Okay, the two of us have been pretty much eating them all...

You will need: 

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 

1 1/2 cups sugar 

1 teaspoon baking soda 

1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon cocoa powder 

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil 

1 cup buttermilk, room temperature 

2 large eggs, room temperature 

Red, blue, yellow and green food coloring

1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 (12-cup) muffin pans with cupcake papers or use 24 foil baking cups on a cookie sheet. In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In a large bowl gently beat together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, vinegar, and vanilla with a handheld electric mixer. Add the sifted dry ingredients to the wet and mix until smooth and thoroughly combined.

Separate batter evenly into 4 different pyrex or stainless steel bowls. Carefully use food coloring to get desired colors. It is best to start out with a little and add more. 

Grab a spoon for each bowl. Stir in the food coloring until thoroughly mixed, making sure there isn't any pockets of coloring or light batter. Leave the spoon in it's designated bowl to be used to scoop the batter into the cupcake papers. Since this is a red velvet recipe and the batter is cream colored, your colors will not be super bright.

Drizzle in one color at time into the cupcake paper. You can experiment and put in even amounts of each color or try 8 layers for a tie dye effect. Fill up the cupcake paper about 2/3 of the way. You may find that not all 24 cupcakes will be used due to the spreading of batter in the bowls and spoons. I ended up with 18 generous cupcakes.

Bake in oven for about 20 to 22 minutes, turning the pans once, half way through. Test the cupcakes with a toothpick for doneness. Remove from oven and cool completely before frosting.

Now for the best part! 

After your cupcakes have cooled, it's time to frost and decorate.

You will need:

1 pound cream cheese, softened 

2 sticks butter, softened 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar 

Sprinkles

In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla together until smooth. Add the sugar and on low speed, beat until incorporated. Increase the speed to high and mix until very light and fluffy. Use a butter knife or pastry bag to pile the frosting on! 

I use a ziplock bag with the corner cut off and it works like a charm. It is much faster and cleaner this way. If you put your pastry bag in the fridge while the cupcakes are cooling, you may want to massage the bag a little to warm it up before using it or it might be too stiff to squeeze out.

Then add your sprinkles!

Each bite makes me smile. Yummy and pretty!

Believe me, once you have made a red velvet cupcake it will be really hard to use any other recipe. I always go back. You can also try topping with a raspberry or slice of strawberry.

My Rainbow Velvet Cupcake recipe was created using this and this.