Last week a friend on Facebook shared a photo of a rainbow cheesecake being made, so today when the kids were driving me nuts I decided to have a go at rainbow cupcakes.

The cupcake mixture is a standard recipe baked at 180c / 350f for about 15 minutes:

125g Caster sugar

125g Unsalted butter (softened)

2 Eggs (beaten)

1.5tsp Vanilla Essence

125g Self raising flour

2-3 table spoons of milk

• If needed soften the butter in a microwave using 10 second bursts – you dont want it to melt.
• In a freestanding mixer or by hand cream the softened butter and sugar.
• Add the vanilla essence to the beaten eggs and add the mixture slowly to the creamed butter and sugar while mixing on a slow speed.
• Slowly add the flour and continue to mix.
• Add the milk a little at a time until it drops easily off a spoon.

I made double the amount listed above and ended up with 24 small cupcakes.

To colour the mixture I used Wilton gel colours from an *icing colour set” – except for the orange which was another brand. I separated the mixture into 6 bowls and used cocktail sticks to add the gel colours to each bowl. Once evenly mixed I used teaspoons and my fingers to add the colours in layers to make a rainbow pattern. I made one tray starting with purple at the bottom and adding the rainbow colours in layers to the centre. This used up most of the purple and blue but left me with plenty of red orange yellow and green so I switched and started with red at the bottom and added all the colours at one side to end up with a rainbow effect.

I’m pretty happy with the results, especially when you cut into them. I’m just turning a blind eye to the amount of e-numbers present 😉