Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Rainbow Cupcakes for St.Patrick's Day

St Patrick’s Day is new to even my Christian friends from India. Then again, I have not checked with any Catholic friends of mine to see if they celebrated it while growing up. Sunitha says - she had no clue until she landed in the U.S.

Rainbow Cupcakes

When you have children, everything colorful and vibrant catches your eyes. It could be the grocery store, department store, out in nature, everywhere. And if you have young ones going to school, they will definitely regale about every colorful experience they have in school! Well, at least until they are teenagers, I hope. Therefore, it must have either been the bakery which first made me curious about the colorful cupcakes, or my daughter’s animated description of some fantastic cupcake her friend shared with her. Whichever way, my interest was piqued and I participated in St Patrick ’s Day in my own way.

Rainbow Cupcakes


Historically, this is a festival in honor of the patron Saint of Ireland and celebrated on March 17th. The festivities started with the Catholics in Ireland, but have now taken a secular swing, spreading far and wide. I can confirm this is secular and gone beyond the boundaries of Ireland because even a mother from a small town in Kerala now fully participates by baking rainbow cupcakes on this special day.

Rainbow Cupcakes

For some people, St Patrick’s day is about coloring lakes green, wearing green attires or getting pinched for not wearing green, drinking a lot of green drinks, and even spotting funky hats. Others may call this an eyesore and decide not to participate. But as for me, it is another reason to celebrate in the middle of March! The beautiful color green signifies the arrival of spring. You know I will take spring for anything. In short, ‘have a great time’ is written all over this festival and I have decided not to shy away.

Baking fancy cupcakes is one of the ways I celebrate. For this one, the process was painstaking, with half a tablespoon different color batter being poured alternatively into each cupcake mold. But when baked, and my little boy exclaimed ‘rainbow’ with his hands clutching his wide-open-mouth it was priceless. Color your day green!

Rainbow Cupcakes

I have to tell you this - the first time I got excited about rainbow cupcakes is when Sangeetha shared it on her blog Kothiyavunu. Thank you Sangee for inspiring.


Ingredients:

Flour: 1 cup
Baking powder- 1 to 1 1/2 tsp
Vegetable oil- 1/2 cup
Sugar- 1/2 cup (plus 2 Tbsp if you are not using a frosting)
Eggs- 2
Pure Vanilla Extract- 1 1/2 tsp
Milk/Buttermilk- 1/2 cup
Food colors-Yellow,Red,Blue,Green

To Make more Colors:

Violet - 9 red + 6 blue drops
Orange - 12 yellow + 4 red drops.


Method:

1.Line a muffin pan to make 10 cupcakes. Beat together sugar and oil, follow up by add eggs one at a time.
2.Now mix in the vanilla extract.
3.Whisk together flour and baking powder in a separate bowl.
4.Gradually add flour into the wet mixture alternating with milk or buttermilk to make the batter.
5. Take 6 bowls and pour equal quantity of the batter into each of them. (It will be about 1/3 cup in each bowl) Preheat oven at 350 degree F.
6. Color the batter in each bowl with the food colors mentioned above. Stir well without any streaks making a uniform color. It will take about 10-12 drops of color. I know it's a lot of color but you will need to make vibrant cupcakes.
7. Now is the time consuming part. Carefully pour about 1/2 Tbsp of each color into all the prepared cups.(Be accurate, if you add more than 1/2 Tbsp, you will run out of batter !)
11.Starting with either blue or red finish all the rainbow colors. Each time make sure that you cover the bottom layer color with the one you are pouring on top. Do not spread the batter. Keep pouring each spoon of batter in the center every time and batter will spread itself.
12.Bake for about 15 minutes or until the tester comes out clean.
16.Cool on a wire rack and then the cakes are ready for frosting.

Notes:

1.This recipe yields the most moist and delicious Vanilla cupcakes I've ever tasted!
2.Using the same recipe you may choose to use just 4 or 5 colors. This will make each colored portion broader.
3.You don't have to worry about taking time to pour in each color, the cupcakes will come out perfect.
4.If you add only 1/2 cup sugar, the cake is not too sweet. This will give you enough incentive to frost without feeling guilty. I used whipped cream to frost some of the cup cakes.

Adapted from: Baking bites and Kothiyavunu

42 comments:

  1. Looks so pretty n attractive....we live in the world of globalization now so celebrating anything is fine ..as long as it makes us or ppl arnd us happy :)

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  2. Very attractive and gorgeous cupcakes, truly catchy:)..

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  3. yeah in england its a big big thing..last weekend there were celebrations in trafalgar sq and the costumes ppl wore were quite interesting, to say the least:)
    chicago was fun too where they coloured the lake green...
    i don think il ever have the patience 2 try this cake out but it does look pretty.. esp with the frosting

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  4. Wow...it looks amazing with such beautiful colours...Hey you got lot of patience to do this...kudos to you..

    FunWidFud

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  5. Aww..how pretty..fun n so colorful!


    US Masala

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  6. Pretty cupcakes..Enthaa colors! Adipoli, Nami..

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  7. Namitha...these look really gorgeous. Reminds me of my 1st baking experiment - rainbow cake!! It was loads of fun to do with my toddler. Btw..My husband's catholic and he had not celebrated St. Patrick's day till he came to the UAE. I'm a protestant born n brought up in UAE and I never did care for it either. But yea, I do attend the St Patrick's beer festival they hold annually in the Irish village..just to watch ppl have fun and drink..though I don't drink!
    Renee

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  8. Wow..pretty cupcakes..love those colorful layers..so attractive..

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  9. Who would n't want that??? Excellent nami...So festive and looks far better than mine..he he :-) Thanks to baking bites who shared the original recipe and Thanks for linking me..Hope meenu and milan liked it :) I still remember ur last year's St.Patrick's days treat green color frosting cupcake!! sheri appoo st patrick's adichupolikuttoo..

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  10. Wow!! superb..looks soo awesome and tempting..

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  11. I have never seen such a pretyy rainbow color cupcake!

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  12. Rainbow cupcake looks superb and festive,the most beautiful I have ever seen!

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  13. St. Patrick's day is totally an Irish thing and me living near one of the irish captitals of USA, have to go thru everything that goes on here in schools especially! :)
    the colors of ur cake are so vibrant and it looks like so much fun...
    I am only scared that the batter will mix togther! will have to try to out soon...its a fun spring cups for sure!
    Smitha
    Smitha's Spicy Flavors

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  14. Very vibrant color cupcake! If u have a kid going to school definitely they would have asked "Green", leprechaun project,etc..

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  15. wow that's one cute and beautiful cup cake....very tempting clicks too..

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  16. ooo, you have definitely mastered "PERFECTION", Nami :) the rainbow cupcakes looks stunning as ever and love its texture. Photographsinte karyam pinne parayandallo :)

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  17. wow...wonderful cupcakes....so colorful ...looks so stunning !

    http://onlyfishrecipes.blogspot.com/

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  18. very cute and tempting..kids will love it this way..

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  19. What a labour of colors but all of it looks so so pretty.Love these rainbow cupcakes.

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  20. adipoli cupcake Namitha, entha payran mazavillu pole undu.

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  21. Cakes look so colorful and tasty. Can't take my eyes off it.

    Deepa
    Hamaree Rasoi

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  22. luks very cute and attractive cup cake...yum

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  23. Wow,so so colourful and just reminds rainbow! BeautifuL!!

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  24. Wow wow very very pretty and beautiful shot... awesome work.

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  25. Kids will definitely die for this...Lovely Cakes

    http://www.panchamrutham.blogspot.com/

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  26. pretty n cute cupcake...So tempting dear...

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  27. pretty and wonderful cup cakes.........kids will love this.....

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  28. very fantastic and cute cupcakes.Reminds me of holi colur and rainbow as well.

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  29. Colorful and yummy cake...looks too gud

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  30. They look so colourful, perfect and pretty , wow:)

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  31. Pretty cupcakes baked with patience and love for pretty children by a pretty mother:)

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  32. They look so tempting and colorful

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  33. great colors in one cupcake. Gorgeous!!!

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  34. Absolutely colorful and attractive :)

    Love the clicks a lot :)

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  35. wow and wow, i don't think i could make it to this perfection! do i need to be a kid to grab those ;)

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  36. wow!!!! Feel like having one of those!

    Ankita
    http://eat-hearty.blogspot.com/

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  37. wow!!beautiful colours cake....gud job!!!nice click as usual!

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  38. Very vibrant and awesome looking cake.

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  39. Lovely cup cake and very colorful too! Hey girls, I have some surprises waiting for you in my blog, I hope you visit soon. Thanks so much!

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